Memorial of Saint John Vianney, Priest

August 4, 2016

As I reflected on today’s readings I heard a message of asking for and embracing New Life that God offers to us. As I was trying to piece together what I was hearing I listed the word/phrases that caught my attention:
I will place my law within them and write it on their hearts
I will be their God and they shall be my people
I will forgive
Create a clean heart in me
Renew within me
You are Christ, the Son of the Living God
You are not thinking as God thinks
I heard God saying, the law/Christ is within offering love, forgiveness and
mercy.

Then, at the end of the Gospel reading when Jesus rebukes Peter it feels like Peter, who had just named Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God, could only see and hear death. Jesus had proclaimed his suffering and death and resurrection but Peter missed the resurrection part.

I heard today an invitation to remember that Christ is within, offering and giving forgiveness, a clean heart. With this clean heart, I am asked to remember God is a Living God and to reflect How am I thinking as a human, not as God? Where am I missing the invitation to New Life and how am I to embrace resurrection?