Scripture reading reflection

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Scripture Reading Reflection
by Fr. Andrew Kelly
TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY ORDINAL TIME – AUGUST 24, 2014
Sunday’s Gospel (Matthew 16:13-20) begins: “Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’”
Jesus’ question is crucial to the believing community’s identity. Because whoever Jesus is, so is the community. Jesus revealed who he was through powerful and compassionate words and deeds of mercy and healing. The community reveals who it is through its day-in-and-day-out insistence that all the community’s words and deeds will always reveal the powerful and compassionate words and deeds of Jesus’ mercy and healing.
Who do people say the community is? Hopefully and prayerfully everyone who encounters the community’s words and deeds will know and recognize the powerful, compassionate healing mercy of “the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
(Father Andrew Kelly is a retired priest of the Diocese of Davenport.)


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