14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
First Reading: Ez 2:2-5 
Second Reading: 2 Cor 12:7-10 
Gospel Reading: Mk 6:1-6

After humanity’s original sin, God did not abandon us, but “through the prophets” taught us to “look forward to salvation,” the Church says in Eucharistic Prayer IV. Then, in “the fullness of time,” he sent us his Son.

Through prophets like Ezekiel, God spoke in “fragmentary and varied ways,” says the Letter to the Hebrews; “in this, the final age, he has spoken to us through his Son.”

“Christ, the Son of God made Man, is the Father’s one, perfect, and unsurpassable Word,” says the Catechism of the Catholic Church. “In him he has said everything; there will be no other word than this one.” Nevertheless, it says, Revelation “has not been made completely explicit; it remains for Christian faith gradually to grasp its full significance over the course of the centuries.”

This is where the Church comes in. “You are ‘Rock,’” Christ told Peter, “and on this rock I will build my Church ... I will entrust to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you declare bound on earth shall be bound in heaven; whatever you declare loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Today, therefore, we can look to the Pope and the Church for guidance in matters of belief and morality, just as the ancient Israelites could look to the prophets.

However, we often react to the Church as the Jews did to Christ in the Gospel Reading: “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? ... And they took offence at him.”

We see this reaction when the Church reiterates her teaching on divorce, contraception, pre-marital sex, or homosexuality (“Churchmen are celibate; what do they know about it?”). We see it when bishops or priests commit serious public sin (“How can we believe what the Church says when even her own members flout it?”)

Think again. When Christ promised to build his Church on Peter as on a rock, he must have known that his apostles were weak human beings. Indeed, only a few minutes later, he turned upon Peter, saying, “Get out of my sight, you Satan! You are trying to make me trip and fall. You are judging not by God’s standards but by man’s.”

When Peter declared, at the Last Supper, “I will lay down my life for you!” Jesus answered, “You will lay down your life for me, will you? I tell you truly, the cock will not crow before you have three times disowned me!” When, shortly afterward, all the apostles said, “We do indeed believe that you came from God,” Jesus replied, “Do you really believe? An hour is coming – indeed has already come – when you will be scattered and each will go his own way, leaving me quite alone.”

Jesus was not cancelling the authority he had given Peter. He was not trying to discourage the men he himself had chosen. Rather, he was reminding them of their dependence on him. As God says in the Second Reading, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

More and more, our world appears to be “a nation of rebels” in revolt against God, like Israel in the First Reading. Through insults, mockery, and repressive laws, it tries to weaken our allegiance to Christ and his Church.

We should not lose confidence. Jesus promised to remain with his Church until the end of the world and to give her his Holy Spirit to guide her into all truth. She will remain strong, therefore, not with her own strength, but with God’s.

“You will suffer in the world,” Jesus told his apostles the night before he died. “But take courage! I have overcome the world.” Our response to the “hardships, persecutions, and calamities” we suffer “for the sake of Christ,” therefore, must be that of St. Paul: “Whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”