Mrs. Peggy Brechtel, OP
Isaiah 22:19-23
The Lord tells Shebna that he is handing over the authority of master of the palace to Eliakim, son of Hilkiah. The Lord says, “I will place the key of the House of David on Eliakim’s shoulder; when he opens, no one shall shut, when he shuts, no one shall open.”
Matthew 16:33-20
This is a typology of what Jesus says to Peter in the Gospel of Matthew 16:33-20. “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Notice that when Jesus wants to know what “people” are saying about him he refers to himself as the Son of Man, but when he asks his apostles, “Who do you say that I am?” he is using his name as God, “I am.” To quote Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis in the August Magnificat, “To the happy (and indifferent) eclecticism of “John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets,” Jesus reacts by saying to those sitting by him: “But you, my dear friends: you who know the contour of my face and the sound of my voice and the smell of my skin and hair…..Could you pick me out in the confusion of a dark room full of prophets as your (and God’s!) one and only Beloved? Am I present to you as the total person that I am? It is, after all, to reveal the Father that I came, and you can know the Father only if you know who I am!”
Jesus asks us, too, “Who do you say that I am?” Do we recognize Jesus in the homeless, the lonely and isolated, those suffering from addictions, the sick and the dying, even in the person we find most difficult? We all want others to see Jesus in us, but how are we doing when it comes to seeing Jesus in others? We must seek out the lost and forsaken, those weak in the faith, those far removed from any idea of God and bring them back. This is an obligation of our baptism as Priest, Prophet and King. Let us take this to prayer this week and reflect on how well we are doing in this whole matter of loving God and neighbor.
