One Month Anniversary of Fr. Floyd's first Mass

Fr. Floyd's first Mass, originally uploaded by fr.ron_floyd.

Who do people say that I am?
By: Rev. Fr. Ronnie P. Floyd

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Two Princes of the Apostles Saints Peter and Paul, two very different people from very different backgrounds who were thrown together in the adventure we call Catholicism. Indeed, it’s quite amusing how different they were.

In Naples, Italy, where I have been assisting as a Deacon at the US Navy base for the past year I know a sailor who reminds me a lot of Peter. He is humble and kind, a hard worker, but also a little rough around the edges A simple man, but wise in the school of life.

I think Peter had a similar personality. He was loyal and good hearted and yet at the same time he was often rash putting his foot in his mouth more than once.

My name sake and patron, Saint Paul on the other hand, reminds me more of myself—he was a little bit more stuffy. A zealot and occasionally an ideologue. A man who lived an academic life.

Both Peter and Paul, however, were ordinary men, comfortable with their lives as they were before they met Jesus. They were comfortable with their identity and place in life. Today, we celebrate Jesus shaking things up a bit.

Like Peter and Paul, most of us become very comfortable with the way the world is, we become engrossed in our work, our families, and our hobbies and we become distracted by so many comforts, responsibilities, and concerns. WE GET CAUGHT UP IN THE WORK-A-DAY WORLD and forget that we were made for something better, that as Paul tells us, we are strangers and sojourners in this world, Pilgrims on the way to our true home, to true happiness and peace! WE forget the bigger picture and we forget to ask the bigger questions.

We are told: You must have the heart of a Child to enter Heaven, precisely because children ask theses questions—unceasingly—that is, until they become discouraged by the lack of enthusiasm shown by adults, for, at least,  the pursuit of, answers. But these are the same great questions that the great thinkers of every culture and age have asked in the masterpieces of theology, philosophy, and mysticism. As Pope John Paul II, observed in his Encyclical Fides et Ratio:

a cursory glance at ancient history shows clearly how in different parts of the world, with their different cultures, there arise at the same time the [same] fundamental questions which pervade human life: Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going? Why is there evil? What is there after this life? These are the questions which we find in the sacred writings of [all cultures]. They are questions which have their common source in the quest for meaning which has always compelled the human heart.

These are the questions which ordinary often forget to ask! Today Jesus suggest these questions to Peter and the twelve when he asks: Who do people say that I am,

Today Jesus asks an important question, because by asking “who do people say I am,” Jesus is really asking the Apostles  DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? And DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE?

Who am I? This question of identity is a question that we all ask ourselves, from the beginning of our lives until the day that we die, and since the circular answer: “I am me” is unsatisfing we are all forced to turn outwards—to other people—for answers. Know theyself—the famous inscription at the Oracle at Delphi, reminds people that the question of identity is a life long human task of self-discovering, essential to our self-fulfillment and happiness. Today Jesus, in asking who others say he is, is really reminding Peter and the twelve of this task.

We ask, who do people say that I am, because from the first days of life, we realize that the answer does not lie in our self, but rather in our relationships to the other. Just as a sailor plots his position based on known landmarks and stars so also we chart our identity based on our relationships with others. First with our mothers, then our fathers, then our siblings, and friends and eventually even based on our relationships with strangers… We ask: who do people say that I am? Because just like the sailor, to affirm, “I am here,” means nothing if you don’t know where here is.

For Jesus, however, hearsay did not suffice, while it is true that we need all of those other reference points to plot a relative location or identity. When we really think about it, tn reality, these reference points fail to tell us anything absolute about ourselves. Einstein sums it up well in his theory of relativity—you can’t judge things based on points themselves in motionvand expect an answer that is not relative itself to those reference points.

In Italy we joke that when you ask for directions the Italians, always say: Sempre Dritto, straight ahead, refusing to admit that in reality they don’t know where they are or where you are going. You can ask, who do people say that I am? To as many people as you want, but if, as I have suggested, in truth, none of them truly know who they are, then none of them can tell you who you are.

People in Jesus’ time, said Jesus was—from Nazareth, the son of Mary, the Carpenter’s son—and others, seeing his signs and miracles began to say he was—a prophet, the reincarnation of John the Baptist or Elijah. Today some people say similar things: They say he was a great teacher, a guru, a political & social activist. In response to these misconceptions, Jesus asks his closest disciples—those He had chosen to lead and build His Church: And who do you say that I am?

And again Jesus is not asking who they think he is, relative to them but who he is in reality. Because if in reality Jesus is just another man, no different from Buddha, Mohammed, or Gandhi then Jesus can be only a relative reference point for the world.

To Jesus’ question: who do you say that I am? Peter gives two answers: You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. As Pope Benedict notes, Peter’s answer, which was not revealed to him by ‘flesh and blood’ but was given to him by the Father… contains as in a seed the future … faith of the Church. (The Apostles, 48)

He is the Son of the Living God—and this identity comes from the unmovable source of all creation—God Himself. It is only because of His identity as the Son of God that Jesus says: I am the Way, the Truth, and the Light because of the reality of his identity as Son of God he is the Savior of the World.

Each of us is a mystery to ourselves and to others. Although we live in ourselves, we really don’t know who we are talking about when we say “I.” Who is this I? How do we define ourselves?

Simon was a fisherman, a father, a husband, an ethnic Jew, but none of these things defined him. One day while cleaning his nets he encountered Jesus and leaving all these things behind, he followed him. He followed Jesus because by His preaching Jesus had awakened in Simon’s heart the desire for meaning, for a meaning that his life as a fisherman couldn’t provide.

Today Simon receives his answer from God. Replying to Jesus’ question, Simon finally finds a point of reference that is unmovable and certain, and confessing—you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God Simon finds his own meaning, his own identity—You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.

For Saul it was the same— when Jesus appeared in a blinding light, prompting Saul to ask: who are you Lord? …And accepting the identity of Christ, Saul, the greatest persecutor of Christianity becomes one of its greatest missionaries,

SO HERE IS THE POINT…

What we must realize is that Jesus is God, when we see Jesus we see God. This is what Peter and Paul came to accept, and accepting it Jesus became for them a mirror of truth

Jesus became man, so that we could regained access to God and because God is Truth, when we open our eyes and see Jesus, we see God and we see the truth, the truth about ourselves!

This was my own personal experience! Born and raised a Catholic: I was always taught to believe in God, The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but like most Catholics today, I did not let this faith transform my life, and so I spent years looking for who I was. Trying to define myself by my intelligence and grades at school, by my occupation and hobbies, by my ideology and political activism. But all of this was un-satisfying to me. Because we humans are not what we do, what we believe, or what we are capable of.

Rather, we are what God made us to be! This is the realization I reached in College. That faith in God the Father, Son, and Spirit requires change and reformation  of who I think I am into who I really am, the person God created me to be. I wasted so much time, avoiding the question that we all must ask. Not who do people say that I am, but rather, who does God want me to be? But God, who is so patient, allowed me to try so many other things, in order to show me through them that He had a different plan for me.

The fact of the matter is that when we see and come to know Jesus we see God, and seeing God we begin to understand the nature of creation: that God made us, that we continue to exist Only because He loves us, and that He who knit us together in our mothers womb, has a plan for us!

God’s plan and His plan alone, is our one path to happiness, fulfillment, and knowledge of who we truly are. In seminary, I knew I was on the right path, because I was more content and happy than I had ever been. Today, my first day as a priest, I can say the same, and while I remain still a mystery to myself I know today that an intergral part of who I am is a Priest of Jesus Christ. Like for Simon and Saul, it is only in seeing the reality of who Jesus is, that we can find a constant point of reference for our own identity and start to become who we were made to be.

As St. Catherine of Siena says beautifully in her mystical writings: If you would be happy remember, you are she who is not and He is He who is. To know that God is God and you are not, to know that He is in Charge and that all things are in reference to Him; this is the beginning of Wisdom and of Self-knowledge.

My friends, today we gather here as a community of Faith. To confess our belief in God and in Jesus Christ who he sent

In doing so we acknowledge our own identity as His people and together with Christ offer him the perfect Sacrifice of praise—the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

This is the source of our communal and personal identity, this act in which acknowledging our poverty we receive God’s goodness, and in Jesus make recompense to God for all the goodness God has shown us.

Thus as we enter into the sacred mysteries Jesus asks each and every one of us today: Who do you say that I am?

When I, with you, pray using Christ’s words—this is my body, this is my blood, do this in memory of me—Jesus gives us the chance to say with Peter: You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and in doing so to learn who you are and who God wants you to be.

Ss. Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Given the 29th day of June in the Year of Our Lord Jesus Christ 2008
On the Solemn Feast of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul
In the first year of priesthood