Daily Reflection
June 29, 2025

Perhaps you were looking for a Sunday in Ordinary Time?  Well, we have “Solemnity” or very special celebrations which occupy certain calendar dates and when that date is on a Sunday,  it replaces the ordinary with the extra-ordinary as it does for this Sunday. Stay-tuned, Ordinary returns next weekend.

It has been said that if a person does not stand for something, he/she will fall for anything. This very Sunday in the bay of Gloucester, Massachusetts, there is the blessing of boats and especially fishing crafts in honor of St. Peter, who was a kind of fisherman until Jesus interrupted his life. It is quite a celebration with all kinds of special activities.

One such attraction is the walking out over the water on a well-greased extended log. Brave persons walk carefully out upon the log until they eventually and inevitably slip, slide and take an ocean-bath.  Peter himself was, in another story, invited to walk on the slippery water from his boat toward Jesus, and he took a drink when he lost footing and faith.

We recall in our Readings for this Eucharistic liturgy the non-slipping of faith in the events of Peter and Paul. They both kept faith in the Christ Who was faithful to them in their distress.

The Gospel is a familiar Q-and-A between Jesus and Peter. Now it seems to be a rather nice day there as they walk along and Jesus does not put them to the test, but He hears them give a report about the names or identities floating around about Jesus. It can be assumed that Jesus is not concerned about His public stature at that time. He uses this probe to not test Peter but allow him to verbally walk the relational path of not just saying but living his faithfulness. 

Matthew then pictures Jesus as ordaining “Peter-for-leader” of the community which will eventuate into the Church. Very sorry to recall that these words were so misused to prove that the Pope, Peter’s successors, were to hold the “keys” of just who belongs and who have slipped into the oceans of unfaithfulness. We do hold fast to the Leader toward unity and not division or separation. The windows and doors of the Church are as wide open for entering than for rejection. The “keys” are of wisdom not judging. If the “keys” are for opening God’s love into the world, then Jesus was sharing His identity as Savior.
So that’s all well and good for Peter and Paul, but what’s well and good for us as we move toward the Sacrament of the Eucharist? As we have been reading from the Acts of the Apostles during Eastertime, Peter and Paul had disagreements and had to settle up about important issues in what was to be the new Way of God’s call and our responses.

Pope Leo and Pope Francis before him, have been calling us to a “deeperness” of belief, or faith, or trust or just walking out on the slippery log of life. Faith is not just what we say or think, but how we walk from what is deep inside to what invitations to walk as peacefully into the pains of this life. We are encouraged to attend funerals of married partners, bedsides of the suffering, read the stories of martyrs as well as our living the joys and pains of those slippery experiences of living.

Perhaps deepening comes from our trusting that, though we slip and slide, His faithfulness is what raises us up. We might experience embarrassments from our falls, but the more important act of faith is when we allow His Love to be the center of our faith. If we stand up for our true self, we do not have to be frightened of temporarily falling for something and this is deep faith which Peter and Paul lived and died. He alone can save us from ourselves.