Memorial of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, priest

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/092311.cfm

Saint (Padre) Pio

Then he said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"
Peter said in reply, "The Christ of God."
He rebuked them and directed them not to tell this to anyone.


Saint Luke's account of Peter's confession of faith has a very different feel from those of Saint Mark and Saint Matthew. It is followed by Jesus' rebuke. 
Luke 9 has raised the question, "Who is Jesus?" The tetrarch Herod wants to know. The crowds are speculating; is he Elijah, John the Baptist, or another prophet? 


Peter's reply is correct by the catechism. He is the "Christ of God," but does anyone know what that means? Certainly his disciples do not. They cannot imagine and we struggle to imagine what messiah and anointed mean.


I meet a lot of Veterans in the hospital who were well trained in their catechism. But when they left the shelters of school, home and church they quickly forgot all the right answers they had "been forced to memorized." 
Without the support of a living community the old answers meant nothing. Hard experience and harder teachers taught them different beliefs about life. 
Jesus instruction of his disciples did not end with Peter's declaration. Rather, he taught them the meaning of "Christ" with his suffering and death. This was something beyond their imagination. Nothing in their religious training had taught them God might suffer with them. They could not imagine the death of the Messiah, and some naturally resisted the teaching. 
But Jesus was persistent and insistent. Even yet they could not understand until they became willing to take up their own "crosses" each day and follow in his steps. 
The catechism, like the Bible, is a good start on life, but without discipleship it leads nowhere. Let us pray that parents, families and catechists will "disciple" children in the fellowship of Jesus; and that he will still "discipline" us.