Fr. Michael Williams

Last week we heard how Peter was totally tuned into God’s will when he declared to Jesus, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God’. This week we hear how Peter closes himself off to God’s will. Peter wants to dictate what God’s will should be rather than discovering what God’s will is.

Peter (and most of us) can’t understand that ‘Jesus must suffer grievously and be put to death. Peter’s response of, ‘Heaven preserve you Lord. This must not happen to you’ reveals that Peter thinks he knows best, rather than God. We can all fall into this trap on a regular basis! Not so much, ‘Thy will be done’, as ‘My will be done’!

We all can oscillate from God’s will to our own will like Peter. It’s so easy to do this because God’s divine will is far above from our own human will. God’s will is supernatural; our human will is natural. One of St Paul’s hymns speaks of, ‘the mystery of God’s will’. And with any mystery we cannot understand it, or it would cease to be a mystery. Suffering is a part of God’s mysterious will that we cannot get our heads around.

Peter receives a hefty rebuke from the Lord for not accepting that Jesus must suffer as part of His mission. Because, mysteriously, it was God’s will that Jesus should endure the Cross and enter into glory as mysterious as that appears to us.

This is not to say that we should just accept suffering in a passive way. When we witness people suffering we should try to mitigate that suffering if that’s possible. When Jesus was carrying His Cross He endured it for the love of God and each one of us. But He was supported in that journey- Our Lady, Veronica, Simon of Cyrene, the Daughters of Jerusalem- all accompanied Him on His sorrowful way of the Cross. Sometimes that’s all we can do for people when we see them suffering. Although sometimes we can alleviate suffering as well through the medical profession if someone is sick to help them get better or supporting Aid Agencies who seek to feed the starving of the world, for example.

But sometimes our reaction to suffering can only be enduring it in love. This is to have a ‘new mind’ following in the footsteps of Christ. When Jesus endured the scandal of the Cross He continued to love God and His neighbour with a great intensity. He wasn’t overcome by the evil, which was inflicted upon Him, rather He overcame the evil with love. Jesus thought in a divine way, rather than a human way. He was willing to lose His life, so as to save humanity and enable humanity to come through suffering into new life. This is the lesson He was trying to teach Peter, and each one of us.

Significantly, in today’s gospel, Peter doesn’t pick up on Jesus saying that He would ‘be raised up on the third day’. Yet this phrase is essential as it points to Jesus’ victory over suffering and death. We cannot think about Our Lord’s suffering, without contemplating His victory over it in the Resurrection. That is why gather for Mass each Sunday to remind us in our struggles and sufferings that Jesus has won the victory for us. In the daily grind we need this regular reminder of Christ’s Victory: ‘The Resurrection of the dead and life everlasting’. We must keep one eye on this reality throughout our lives.