By Shanborlang Mawrie csc –
Readings: Hag 2:1-9; Lk 9:18-22
Jesus wants to affirm the faith of his disciples by asking “who do the crowd say I am?” And “who do you say I am?” Today Jesus is asking all of us personally, ‘who do you say I am?’ He is asking us because he wants to deepen our faith and our personal relationship with him.
Relationship with any person is not possible without knowing or understanding him/her. The more we know, the more we will understand, love and trust that person. It is very easy to believe what others say about someone but to have an opinion of our own is very difficult. This we see in the gospel when Jesus was asking questions to his disciples. Among all the disciples, only Peter gave the answer “Messiah of God.” This happens in our lives too.
Jesus speaks of the life that he has to go through; that is his passion and death on the cross. Like the disciples, we too are in doubt as to why he had to embrace this life. He is the Son of God, he can do anything, but he chooses this way to suffer; why? It is not easy for us to know and understand exactly who this person really is because, we have the tendency to go with old memories and prejudices about persons or families.
As a Christian, in my desire to know the person of Jesus in my life, I should turn to him in prayer, and have a personal experience with him.
Through my prayer and personal experiences, Jesus will teach and give me the wisdom to know and understand him clearly.