First reading Genesis 9:1-13
The sign of the Covenant
God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, ‘Be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth. Be the terror and the dread of all the wild beasts and all the birds of heaven, of everything that crawls on the ground and all the fish of the sea; they are handed over to you. Every living and crawling thing shall provide food for you, no less than the foliage of plants. I give you everything, with this exception: you must not eat flesh with life, that is to say blood, in it. I will demand an account of your life-blood. I will demand an account from every beast and from man. I will demand an account of every man’s life from his fellow men.
‘He who sheds man’s blood
shall have his blood shed by man,
for in the image of God
man was made.
‘As for you, be fruitful, multiply, teem over the earth and be lord of it.’
God spoke to Noah and his sons, ‘See, I establish my Covenant with you, and with your descendants after you; also with every living creature to be found with you, birds, cattle and every wild beast with you: everything that came out of the ark, everything that lives on the earth. I establish my Covenant with you: no thing of flesh shall be swept away again by the waters of the flood. There shall be no flood to destroy the earth again.’
God said, ‘Here is the sign of the Covenant I make between myself and you and every living creature with you for all generations: I set my bow in the clouds and it shall be a sign of the Covenant between me and the earth.’
Responsorial Psalm 101(102):16-21,29,22-23
The Lord looked down from heaven to the earth.
The nations shall fear the name of the Lord
and all the earth’s kings your glory,
when the Lord shall build up Zion again
and appear in all his glory.
Then he will turn to the prayers of the helpless;
he will not despise their prayers.
Let this be written for ages to come
that a people yet unborn may praise the Lord;
for the Lord leaned down from his sanctuary on high.
He looked down from heaven to the earth
that he might hear the groans of the prisoners
and free those condemned to die.
The sons of your servants shall dwell untroubled
and their race shall endure before you
that the name of the Lord may be proclaimed in Zion
and his praise in the heart of Jerusalem,
when peoples and kingdoms are gathered together
to pay their homage to the Lord.
Gospel Mark 8:27-33
The way you think is not God’s way, but man’s
Jesus and his disciples left for the villages round Caesarea Philippi. On the way he put this question to his disciples, ‘Who do people say I am?’ And they told him. ‘John the Baptist,’ they said ‘others Elijah; others again, one of the prophets.’ ‘But you,’ he asked ‘who do you say I am?’ Peter spoke up and said to him, ‘You are the Christ.’ And he gave them strict orders not to tell anyone about him.
And he began to teach them that the Son of Man was destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and to be put to death, and after three days to rise again; and he said all this quite openly. Then, taking him aside, Peter started to remonstrate with him. But, turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said to him, ‘Get behind me, Satan! Because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.’
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Who are you?
“Who do you say I am?”. This is one of the most fundamental questions that Jesus asked His disciples. This is the same question that Jesus is asking us today and is one we need to answer for ourselves. As we journey through life and face its joys and sadness, we need to listen to Jesus as He asks us, “At this point of your life, who do you say I am?”. Today, let us respond to Jesus, not just from our heads but also from our hearts.
Though Peter answered, “You are the Christ”, he still had a long way to fully grasp the significance of what he was saying. He wanted a Messiah, a Christ who would be powerful and glorious, and thus, could not accept Jesus as the suffering Messiah. The invitation is for us to let God be God. Jesus is patient with us as we journey to know Him as who He truly is, not who we want Him to be. There is always more about Jesus we do not know.
Reflective question:
Who is Jesus for me at this point of my faith journey?
Who is Jesus for me at this point of my faith journey?
Acknowledgment: Reflections are based on “Prayer for Living: The Word of God for Daily Prayer Year A” by Sr Sandra Seow FMVD.
