Even Saints Make Mistakes
2021년 9월 12일Even Saints Make Mistakes
<Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time>
Jesus asked, “Who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered correctly, “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.” Yet just a few sentences later, Jesus is calling him “Satan.” What happened? First of all let’s established that this really happened. How do we know? Because it’s a total embarrassment for the head of the apostles to be called “Satan” by Jesus. No one would make that up. By WHY did Jesus do this? Because Peter was trying to avoid the mystery of the Cross. Without the Cross, there is no salvation, no Christ. Jesus came to show us the depth of God’ love for us, but Peter, like Satan, was trying to avoid the Cross.
Here, Satan is not the scary monster created by Hollywood. Satan means “adversary.” Satan opposes the humanity, vulnerability and the mortality of Jesus and tries to block it wherever possible. Jesus wanted to do the will of God by dying on the cross to show there is nothing we can do to make God stop loving us. It was difficult enough without Peter making things worse. But there is another lesson here. We consider Peter our first Pope. Yet here he clearly made a serious mistake. Popes, like people, are not perfect. Like them, we too are called not only to be disciples, but to be saints, not because we are perfect but because God loves us—despite our faults, failures and, yes, even our sins.