24th Sunday of Ordinary Time

24 ^th Sunday in Ordinary Time
 
Jesus and his followers go to Caesarea Philippi for the weekend. Throughout the gospels we are told in many places that Jesus and his followers went to various places. Why? The three years that Jesus spent with His Apostles and then with the other people who were His followers were years of training and reflection. Jesus needed to nurture His little flock to come to His point of view. At least, let Him get them walking on the same road as Him. God the Almighty will do the rest. Jesus begins His conversation by supposedly casually asking, “Who do people say that I am?” In other words, what are people saying about me? We would all like to know. If you asked the people in Capernaum what they thought, they might say that Jesus of Nazareth, is the carpenter’s son, an arrogant show off full of Himself, not what we would like in a Messiah. A couple of people in Jericho would call Jesus the Son of David. Martha and Mary might say that Jesus was their Messiah and friend. The general population had all kinds of ideas about Jesus. They were not ready yet to proclaim Him as the Messiah, Son of God. The principle reason Jesus took his followers away was because He wanted to have a talk with them. Lots of those people were just hangers on. Lots of them just liked following. They had no particular opinion or passion. We remember those who were called Groupies in the ‘60s. Lots of these were Jesus’ Groupies. It was time to cull the flock. Let those who were not particularly interested go home now. Let those who genuinely were searching carry on the journey for another while. Jesus told them that He would soon suffer greatly. He would be rejected. He would be killed. Nobody likes to follow a loser so the stragglers began to walk away. What was left was an idealistic bunch of misfits. Now was the task of molding them into Jesus people. You plant the ideas. You set them on the right path. At some point they must make the journey themselves and hopefully learn and understand as they go.  Somewhere in the confusion of Caesarea Philippi, in the tragedy of Jerusalem, this band of misfits found their way. They focused and grew in holiness until one day we proclaimed them to be saints of the Church. There is hope for us all. Just hang in there.
With love, Fr. Pat