Today, 22nd of February, we celebrate
The Chair of Saint Peter the Apostle
At the time when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens–
while as yet there was no field shrub on earth
and no grass of the field had sprouted,
for the Lord God had sent no rain upon the earth
and there was no man to till the soil,
but a stream was welling up out of the earth
and was watering all the surface of the ground–
the Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground
and blew into his nostrils the breath of life,
and so man became a living being.
Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east,
and he placed there the man whom he had formed.
Out of the ground the Lord God made various trees grow
that were delightful to look at and good for food,
with the tree of life in the middle of the garden
and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The Lord God then took the man
and settled him in the garden of Eden,
to cultivate and care for it.
The Lord God gave man this order:
“You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden
except the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
From that tree you shall not eat;
the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die.”
R./ O bless the Lord, my soul!
Bless the Lord, O my soul!
O Lord, my God, you are great indeed!
You are clothed with majesty and glory,
robed in light as with a cloak.
R./ O bless the Lord, my soul!
All creatures look to you
to give them food in due time.
When you give it to them, they gather it;
when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
O bless the Lord, my soul!
R./ O bless the Lord, my soul!
If you take away their breath, they perish
and return to their dust.
When you send forth your spirit, they are created,
and you renew the face of the earth.
R./ O bless the Lord, my soul!
Jesus summoned the crowd again and said to them,
“Hear me, all of you, and understand.
Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person;
but the things that come out from within are what defile.”
When he got home away from the crowd
his disciples questioned him about the parable.
He said to them,
“Are even you likewise without understanding?
Do you not realize that everything
that goes into a person from outside cannot defile,
since it enters not the heart but the stomach
and passes out into the latrine?”
(Thus he declared all foods clean.)
“But what comes out of the man, that is what defiles him.
From within the man, from his heart,
come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder,
adultery, greed, malice, deceit,
licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.
All these evils come from within and they defile.”
Christians Must Be Messengers of Peace
The first thing Jesus tells His disciples is that they must be bearers of peace. The second instruction is that they must heal the sick. And the third—only the third!—is to proclaim the nearness of the Kingdom of God.
Jesus is not naive. He doesn’t believe that life is always easy, like a perpetual springtime. He knows that He is sending His disciples out “like lambs among wolves.” And we all know what happens to lambs that get lost in a pack of wolves—they end up skinned, violently killed, and left abandoned. Yet, despite this, Jesus asks them to go out on the roads without any luggage or provisions. “Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals.”
What Jesus is proposing is an entire way of life for His disciples. But they didn’t fully understand it. Proof of this is that Peter himself draws his sword when they come to arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane (John 18:10-11). And if we look at the history of the Catholic Church (and of other Christian churches), we see that we have continued to draw the sword, we have waged wars, and we have killed in the name of faith. If we are honest and realistic, we have not exactly been men and women of peace throughout history.
But as the saying goes, “It’s never too late to do the right thing.” There is still time to take these basic instructions from Jesus to heart and become men and women of peace. We have made some progress—many of our military forces are now carrying out peacekeeping missions in different parts of the world under the United Nations.
But that is not enough. We must be people of peace in our everyday lives—in our families, with our friends and acquaintances, in our workplaces. In the way we talk about politics and politicians. Sometimes, I am amazed at the violent words spoken by some of our brothers and sisters who attend daily Mass.
Words of peace. Gestures of peace. The patience of peace. Always. Even when the wolves come and threaten us.
Fernando Torres, CMFThe liturgy celebrates today two great missionaries from the Eastern Church, the monk Cyril (827—869) and his brother, Methodius (815—885), bishop. Born in Thessalonica in Greece, they evangelized the Bulgarians, Moravians and Bohemians in the 9th Century. They created the Slavonic (Slavic) alphabet—called “Cyrillic”—translated the Scriptures and prepared liturgies in Slavonic. On account of this inculturation of the liturgy, they met with much opposition, but Rome approved what they had done.
Lord our God,
you inspired your missionaries
Saints Cyril and Methodius
to be inventive and adaptive
in proclaiming your Good News to people.
Make ah Christians aware, we pray you,
that your Son, Jesus Christ
should be recognizable in us
and help us to renew ourselves again and again,
that we may bear the true face of Christ,
who is your Son and our Lord for ever.
Lord our God, we are gathered here
with your Son in our rnidst.
May we celebrate this Eucharist
in spirit and in truth
and express in it what we uve in everyday hife.
May thus, our friendship and love
for you and for everyone
become deeper and more real
every time we come together
in Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Lord our God,
Jesus has spoken to us here
his word that has to become flesh and bhood
in the hife of each of us
and in our Christian communitjes.
Help us to see that Word always
as a chahlenge to us today,
a challenge to which we can respond
by the strength of the bread of life.
And let the Church and its pastors
do ah they can to bring the liturgy
chose to the life of the people.
We ask this through Christ, our Lord.
