Sunday, September 16, 2018

 “Who do people say that I am?” Jesus poses this question to his disciples on his journey through Caesarea Philippi. It elicits Peter’s acknowledgment that Jesus is the Messiah. For centuries Israel had looked forward to God fulfilling his promise to King David by raising up another great leader to restore Israel’s kingdom (2 Samuel 7). These hopes had become clouded in political and earthly expectations. Peter’s response, in unambiguous terms, “You are the Christ (or the Messiah)”, gives Jesus the opportunity to offer a different understanding. Jesus says that he has come not to establish an earthly kingdom in power, but rather a spiritual kingdom in weakness. God’s Kingdom will be established through Jesus’ Death and Resurrection.
The First Reading, from the third of Isaiah’s “Servant Songs”, belongs to another tradition pointing to the Messiah’s coming in humiliation and suffering. Jesus draws upon this tradition in referring to his own ministry of suffering and death on behalf of God’s people.
Peter fails to take this tradition into account when he tells Jesus not to talk about suffering and death. He is utterly perplexed and alarmed, for Peter believed that the Messiah would come in power and glory. When Jesus says to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan,” he is referring to Satan in the Book of Job, where Satan, as the name actually means, is God’s adversary. Jesus reinforces this by saying that Peter’s thoughts are human ways of thinking, not God’s way. A further challenge emerges for Jesus’ followers from his revelation that he is going to suffer and die. His followers’ lives will embrace the same path of suffering, Death, and Resurrection. As true Christians, our lives too will share in Jesus’ redemptive suffering. At Home with the Word.

In His love and mine,
Father Ken

In the Spring of 1988, Bishop William D. Keeler formed a new parish to accommodate the rapid growth in Silver Spring Township and named Reverend James R. O’Brien as the founding pastor. That same year, Mother Katharine Drexel was beatified by Pope John Paul, II. At Bishop Keeler’s request, the Holy Father gave his permission to name the Parish in Silver Spring Township as the first parish in the world to be named in her honor. Eighteen years later, on October 1, 2000, Blessed Katharine Drexel was canonized and the church’s name changed to Saint Katharine Drexel.

The Saint Katharine Drexel Parish Family, guided by the Holy Spirit, commits itself to reaching out and sharing with all people the love and service modeled by our patroness, with the Eucharist as our source of strength. Through prayer and action, we will serve God, our Lord and Savior, and our community, exhibiting a special concern for the poor, oppressed and marginalized of our society, especially those among the African-American & Native-American peoples.