Thursday of the 18 week in ordinary time ‘b’

Mt 16:13-23

Rapid change is the mood of the Gospel for today. First, Jesus praises Peter for being able to recognize in Him the Son of Man. But right after that, Jesus uses very strong words against Peter: “You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” Shocking, isn’t it? Peter loves Jesus and is only concerned about Him. He doesn’t want His Master to suffer and be hanged on the wood of the cross. Understandable! Why is Jesus so angry then? “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” God’s thinking is totally different than our thinking. We have the tendency to save and protect what we have in this earthly life, but God wants us to think far beyond that. Loosing life is not the worst tragedy for us, but loosing eternal life is. That’s why Jesus gets angry at Peter. Like everyone, we want to protect our loved ones from dying, because we believe that death is the end of everything, and this is typical human thinking. But God’s thinking is much different. If we could only think like God does, then there would be no worries at all. After death there is much more to come- an eternal life.