A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark
Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days. He spoke this openly. Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. At this he turned around and, looking at his disciples, rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
Along the way to Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” They tell Jesus that some people say John the Baptist, others Elijah, and still others one of the prophets. Then Jesus asks them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter says to him: “You are the Christ.” Seconds later, Peter rebukes Jesus for saying that he must suffer and die (and rise after three days), and Jesus says to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan.” I can only imagine how Peter felt—one minute in what must have been a mountaintop moment as he recognizes Jesus as the Messiah and the next minute brought right back down to earth: “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
God, help me understand how to recognize my human limitations and to strive to think as you do. I’m not sure what it might mean to think as you do except to die to my limitations in this life so to rise with Christ. As Jesus says in Matthew about the conditions of discipleship: “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” To consider discipleship in this way echoes what Jesus says would follow his Passion and death: the resurrection. To think as you think, God, is to know that death does not have the final word. There is great joy in that—something Peter himself would come to see when he saw the empty tomb and encountered the risen Christ.
Lord, help me hear your voice today, teach me to offer you my “prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world.” Throughout the day, let me hear you ask me, “Who do you say that I am?” I want to answer with complete trust: “You are the Christ.”
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.