Master·evangeli.net
Today's Gospel + short theological explanation
Peter’s confession on the way to Jerusalem
EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)Today, we contemplate a milestone in Jesus Christ’s way: Peter’s confession. Jesus asks his disciples who the people thing He is and who they themselves consider Him to be. The views of people are greater or lesser approximations —from the past— to the mystery of Jesus Christ, and they have something in common: they classify Jesus in the category of prophet (Elijah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist…). But they do not arrive at His divine nature.
Peter answers in the name of the Twelve in a confession that is markedly different from the opinion of the "people": "You are Christ" (or, also, according to parallel passages, the "Anointed one", "Son of the living God"). Immediately afterwards, Jesus foretells His Passion and Resurrection, and continues with a teaching about the way of the disciples: the way to follow Him, the "Crucified", "losing themselves" in the process.
—In his confession, Peter used "words of promise" from the Old Covenant: it was a confession "in the dark". That confession arrived at its complete form only when Thomas touching the wounds of the Risen Christ, cried out, in amazement: “My Lord and my God!".