21st Ordinary Sunday                                                                            Matthew 16:13-20

We might call this Sunday “Power Sunday” because the theme is the founding of the Church and the handing over of the “Keys” the divine keys of authority in the kingdom of God.  Both Matthew and Mark mention that Jesus and his apostles were in the place called Caesarea Philippi. A place twenty miles north of the sea of Galilee. It was founded by the Tetrarch Philip, the son of Herod the Great, to perpetuate his name and to honor the emperor Caesar. Jesus take them to the heart of paganism for the contrast of what will happen next.

This city was packed with many pagans. There were temples for the Syrian gods Baal and Pan, plus a marble temple to the Roman god Zeus and the emperor Caesar. Jesus realized that if his apostles did not come to know and understand who he really was, set against this background then his earthly ministry, his sufferings, and death would be meaningless, thus he asks them an important question in two parts. 

The first part of the question asks: what is the public opinion of my teaching and curing of the sick?  The apostles immediately chime in: Some say, John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. The phrase ‘one of the prophets’ suggests that the people thought he acted and preached was much like the prophets of old. This was high praise giving him high compliment. Because the prophets were always considered forerunners of the Anointed One, the Christ of God. 

The second part of the question is presented when Jesus asks “But who do YOU say that I am?”  This question seeks a personal response.  For the first time in the life of the apostles, Simon speaks for all the apostles, and he answers: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus blesses him and calls him by his real name Simon bar-Jonah and gives him a new name in Aramaic, “Cephas”, in Greek Petros, translated as “Rock.” We know the meaning of this name when Jesus says, “ you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.” This promises Simon, now Peter, primacy over the whole Church, a primacy that Jesus will confirm after his resurrection when he tells Peter “feed my lambs” and “feed my sheep” (Jn 21:16, ff)

Jesus, then presents the keys of the kingdom of heaven to the person Simon and his successors. Jesus endows his Church with the charism of infallibility, to preserve the Church in the purity of the faith handed on by his apostles, Christ who is the Truth willed to confer on her a share in his own infallibility (CCC889). Note also that Jesus refers to the Church as His Church, he founds it and He remains with it until the end of time, and God  sends the Holy Spirit to guide it. 

Then he charges the apostles to secrecy about the fact that he is the Messiah, the Christ. Jesus does this because he did not want people to know he was the promised Messiah, because the people’s understanding of the coming of the Messiah was immersed the politics of the day rather than any spiritual reality. Therefore there was a possibility of violence against the disciples or even a revolution against Roman authorities, by people who thought the Messiah was with them; but this was not the mission of the Christ.

We pray to the Holy Spirit to convince some of his apostles today of their duty to recognize the truth and stop teaching those things that everyone knows are evil. Please Lord direct your Church in the right direction. 

 © JOSEPH MEILINGER 2026