Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time – Sr. Juana Jaqueline Castillo-Salvador

Matthew 16: 21-27

After Peter’s confession: “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God” Jesus makes the first announcement of his passion. Peter’s ears were not ready to hear such an announcement, much less his heart and from “that fearful and protective heart” he calls him aside. We might think that Peter’s concern is genuine, like that of a sincere friend, but Jesus shows us otherwise. Jesus recognizes in Peter’s words a great temptation, the temptation to stray from the right path, the temptation to hide in order to protect oneself. He knows that this is not the way of God, the way of salvation, therefore he does not conscious the tempter and with firmness and authority he returns Peter to his place, to the place of a follower and with that he reminds him that we must follow in his footsteps, his footprints of crucified.

The time is right and Jesus clearly explains what the path of discipleship is. It hides nothing, it does not hide the suffering and joy that will be part of the follow-up. He opens our eyes and shows us his life proposal. It invites us to stop living for ourselves. He invites us to recognize who we are in order to carry our own cross and with love to follow him with the only certainty that he will be with us until the end of our time. He invites us to find true happiness in the service of others for love of Him and for that we need to learn to follow in His footsteps.

Do we know how to recognize what is a cause of stumbling blocks in our lives? Do we have the courage to turn it out of our way? Are we carrying our cross to follow it?

Matthew 16: 21-27

Jesus began to show his disciples
that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly
from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised.
Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him,
“God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.”
He turned and said to Peter,
“Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me.
You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

Then Jesus said to his disciples,
“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world
and forfeit his life?
Or what can one give in exchange for his life?
For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory,
and then he will repay all according to his conduct.”

Meet Sister Juana Jaqueline Castillo-Salvador, SNDdeN

After Peter’s confession: “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God” Jesus makes the first announcement of his passion. Peter’s ears were not ready to hear such an announcement, much less his heart and from “that fearful and protective heart” he calls him aside. We might think that Peter’s concern is genuine, like that of a sincere friend, but Jesus shows us otherwise. Jesus recognizes in Peter’s words a great temptation, the temptation to stray from the right path, the temptation to hide in order to protect oneself. He knows that this is not the way of God, the way of salvation, therefore he does not conscious the tempter and with firmness and authority he returns Peter to his place, to the place of a follower and with that he reminds him that we must follow in his footsteps, his footprints of crucified. The time is right and Jesus clearly explains what the path of discipleship is. It hides nothing, it does not hide the suffering and joy that will be part of the follow-up. He opens our eyes and shows us his life proposal. It invites us to stop living for ourselves. He invites us to recognize who we are in order to carry our own cross and with love to follow him with the only certainty that he will be with us until the end of our time. He invites us to find true happiness in the service of others for love of Him and for that we need to learn to follow in His footsteps. Do we know how to recognize what is a cause of stumbling blocks in our lives? Do we have the courage to turn it out of our way? Are we carrying our cross to follow it?

Week of August 24, 2026 – Sr. Marie-Andre Mitchell, SNDdeN

August 24, 2026

Matthew 16: 13-20

In the gospel this week, Peter gets a good lesson in how God is in charge. To Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi reported by Mark (Mk 8:27-30), Matthew adds the commissioning of Peter as the rock on which Jesus was to build his church.

It is a remarkable story and the fact that we know it so well should not distract us from just how odd it is.  Firstly, it takes place at Caesarea Philippi, which is pagan territory, then secondly, he asks his disciples a question, instead of teaching them, to get them first to report the public verdict on himself: “whom do people say the Son of Man is?” They give various answers of a religious sort, but then Jesus asks them,” who do you say I am ?”

Peter answers with characteristic impetuosity in the name of them all, but because of a special revelation from the Father, was able to confess Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. The term Christ or Messiah had a long history in Judaism and was applied to a triumphant figure, probably a descendant of David, who God would send to deliver his people. Son of God is a favourite title of Jesus in Matthew (3:17), he reports that both the disciples after the walking on the water (14:33) and Peter on this occasion used it of Jesus.

For that he was rewarded and given his nickname “Rock.” In the Psalms (95:1), this was a name for God, Himself. On this rock, he would build his church. This word occurs only here and later in Matthew (18:17). It corresponds to the assembly (qahal) of God’s people under Moses in the desert (Ex 16:2). Peter was to be to the new qahal what Moses was to the old, He was also to be “bearer of the keys,” like Eliakim under King Hezekiah, The promise that the gates of hell would not prevail anticipates the promise of Jesus’ own continuous presence at the end of the gospel (28:20).

Then Jesus does a strange thing, he commanded his disciples that they should tell nobody that he was the Messiah.  This was because they did not understand the kind of Messiah Jesus was.

Matthew 16: 13-20

Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi and
he asked his disciples,
“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah,
still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter said in reply,
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus said to him in reply,
“Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.
For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you,
but my heavenly Father.
And so I say to you, you are Peter,
and upon this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.
Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Then he strictly ordered his disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.

Meet Sister Marie-Andre Mitchell, SNDdeN

Sr. Marie Andre Mitchell is a South African by birth .After leaving school, Convent of Notre Dame, Kroonstad, she studied for a teaching diploma at the Grahamstown Training College. After teaching for a year she entered the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in Constantia, Cape Town on 12 January 1957, but did her Novitiate in Ashdown Park, England. While teaching. she studied by correspondence for a B.A. (University of South Africa). Later she attended the Missionary Institute in London (MIL) and obtained B.Theology and Master of Religious Studies (cum laude)..The degrees are accredited by the Catholic University of Louvain. Belgium. Her ministry at present is a member of the Bat Kol (Jerusalem ) International Leadership Team and she still has a Scripture group that meets every week. She lives in a cottage at Rose Village,a Methodist retirement village, where she and Sr Brigid Rose Tiernan form a SNDdeN community.