By P. Paul D. Scalia
The future blessed Fulton Sheen once said, with his customary sharpness: “God’s questions are more satisfying than man’s answers.” (It is a variation of his friend G. K. Chesterton’s phrase: “God’s riddles are more satisfying than man’s solutions.”) Today’s Gospel (Matthew 16:13-20) bears witness to this truth. God does not ask questions because He needs the answers, but because we need to reflect on them and find in them more spiritual fruit than human answers can offer.
Our Lord has led His apostles to the pagan territory of Caesarea Philippi. It is a calmer place because it is free of the scribes and Pharisees. He can speak openly without having to deal with their traps. This time of more explicit instruction centers on two questions to His apostles: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” and “But who do you say that I am?”
Who do people say that the Son of Man is? The answer to this first question immediately reveals how unsatisfactory man’s answers can be: “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” John, Elijah, and Jeremiah all resembled Christ because they pointed toward Him. The crowds confuse a likeness with our Lord Himself. This is nothing more than religious opinion.
Thus, the first question reveals our need for divine instruction. On our own we seek and grope after the true God, perceiving Him dimly and, in many ways, approaching the truth. But we inevitably cling to false images or understandings of Him. The idols of the pagans are an obvious example.
But we—who, like the crowds, have followed, observed, and listened to Jesus for some time—can also be mistaken. We have ideas and opinions about Him that depart, to a greater or lesser degree, from the truth about Him. All of which means, not that we do not believe, but that our understanding of Him needs constant purification and illumination. In short, we do not want to be like the crowds, straying into mere religious opinion.
This brings us to the second question: But who do you say that I am? This question provokes profound doctrinal statements about Jesus and His Church. But, instead of rushing into the doctrine itself, let us consider its purpose. Jesus does not ask the question as if it were a catechetical exam or a theological test. It is a personal appeal from His Sacred Heart to His followers. He wants His closest friends and collaborators to know Who He is. Every human heart desires this, of course. How much more the Sacred Heart of our Lord.
We cannot answer accurately on our own. Peter’s answer—“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”—is not human, but divine: “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.” Unlike the crowds, through his faith Peter does not have a religious opinion about Jesus. He has the truth, and declaring it gladdens the Heart of our Lord.
With Peter, we receive from the Father the ability to confess the true faith. Ours is not man’s answer, but God’s revelation; not our own discovery, but the Father’s gift. Only the Father gives us the true faith with which we console the Sacred Heart of His Son.
This also teaches us something about the Church. Founded upon Peter and his divinely inspired answer, the Church proclaims not merely human wisdom, but above all the saving doctrine revealed by the Father. The Church is present in the world not as an NGO or as one more participant in international discussions about integral human development. It is the authoritative voice of God. Yes, the Church is “an expert in humanity” (Paul VI). But only because it possesses the faith that “purifies reason” (John Paul II).
But let us return to the personal dimension of this exchange. Doctrine is given to us not simply so that we may be theologically correct, but, even more, so that we may pray rightly. Uncle Screwtape knows how prone we are to wrong prayer. He fears that we recognize the subjective nature of our thoughts and images of God, that we pray “Not to what I think Thou art, but to what Thou knowest Thyself to be.”
We are poor in spirit, and we do not know how to pray as we ought. The Father reveals Himself through His Son so that we may pray to Him as He is and not as we imagine Him. The Church’s doctrine is salvific because it gives us the right understanding of God and enables us to be in right relationship with Him, praying to Him rightly, saying with Peter: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
This saving doctrine is given ultimately so that we may worship rightly. This explains why there is a certain solemnity and even ceremony in this entire scene. Without the authoritative teaching of the Church, we cannot worship “in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). “If God does not reveal Himself, man clings to the void” (Cardinal Ratzinger).
The modern mind rebels against authority, seeing in it only oppression and slavery. This passage reminds us that the authority given to Peter and, by extension, to the Church is ordered to our entering fully—and with abandon—into that right and saving relationship with God, which is the only true liberation and freedom.
About the author
Fr. Paul Scalia is a priest of the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, where he serves as episcopal vicar for clergy and pastor of Saint James in Falls Church. He is the author of That Nothing May Be Lost: Reflections on Catholic Doctrine and Devotion and editor of Sermons in Times of Crisis: Twelve Homilies to Stir Your Soul.