The Catholic Calendar for Sunday, August 28, 2005
The Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Jeremiah 20:7-9
Psalm 63:2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9
Romans 12:1-2
Matthew 16:21-27

A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:

Placing One’s Will Before God’s Befalls Human Nature;
Embracing the Cross Ascents to Divine Nature (see Mt 16:21-27)

Peter’s reactive and protective response to Jesus’ revelation that He Will sacrificially suffer and rise from the dead, actually imposes Peter’s personal will before God’s will. Jesus immediately checks that sentiment, sourcing it from Satan, the evil tempter.

Intending neither arrogance nor malice, one might consider Peter’s reaction a reflection of the beloved protection He desires for his Lord. Truly, any one of us could voice this desire in our professed love for Him.

Jesus’ instructs that desiring what brings Life and what is of imminent value, is Truth. The Truth, He reveals, is that His Passion, Suffering and Death redeem all souls from the death of sin to the life of holiness. All is gloriously magnified in His resurrection. This Truth continues, Jesus indicates in reply to Peter, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

O Lord, grace us to perpetually recall that our fallen human nature shrinks from discomfort, suffering, and inconvenience. When we are tempted to deny redemptive suffering, help us instead to ask for God’s will to be done. Help us embrace tenderly, that which unites us to Your redemptive suffering, so we may achieve the Good which you intend. Let us see assuredly, that ‘self-denial’, ‘self-sacrifice’, and ‘obedience to the will of God’ contradicts human nature, but humbly elevates us to the supernatural sharing of our victorious cross, as we follow You. Amen.

- Mary Williams
(www.impactbydesign.biz)

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