Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him

16 SEPTEMBER (Mk 8,27-35)

The firmness of Moses before the truth is known to all. He reproaches Joshua because he felt a kind of jealousy. He wished Moses alone were endowed with the Holy Spirit.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Assemble for me seventy of the elders of Israel, men you know for true elders and authorities among the people, and bring them to the meeting tent. When they are in place beside you, I will come down and speak with you there. I will also take some of the spirit that is on you and will bestow it on them, that they may share the burden of the people with you. You will then not have to bear it by yourself. “To the people, however, you shall say: Sanctify yourselves for tomorrow, when you shall have meat to eat. For in the hearing of the Lord you have cried, ‘Would that we had meat for food! Oh, how well off we were in Egypt!’ Therefore the Lord will give you meat for food, and you will eat it, not for one day, or two days, or five, or ten, or twenty days, but for a whole month-until it comes out of your very nostrils and becomes loathsome to you. For you have spurned the Lord who is in your midst, and in his presence you have wailed, ‘Why did we ever leave Egypt?'” But Moses said, “The people around me include six hundred thousand soldiers; yet you say, ‘I will give them meat to eat for a whole month.’ Can enough sheep and cattle be slaughtered for them? If all the fish of the sea were caught for them, would they have enough?” The Lord answered Moses, “Is this beyond the Lord’s reach? You shall see now whether or not what I have promised you takes place.” So Moses went out and told the people what the Lord had said. Gathering seventy elders of the people, he had them stand around the tent. The Lord then came down in the cloud and spoke to him. Taking some of the spirit that was on Moses, he bestowed it on the seventy elders; and as the spirit came to rest on them, they prophesied. Now two men, one named Eldad and the other Medad, were not in the gathering but had been left in the camp. They too had been on the list, but had not gone out to the tent; yet the spirit came to rest on them also, and they prophesied in the camp. So, when a young man quickly told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp,” Joshua, son of Nun, who from his youth had been Moses’ aide, said, “Moses, my lord, stop them.” But Moses answered him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the people of the Lord were prophets! Would that the Lord might bestow his spirit on them all!” Then Moses retired to the camp, along with the elders of Israel. (Num 11,16-30).

Moses instead wants all prophets among the people of God. Not only does Jesus want all to be prophets. That is what will happen with the sending of his Holy Spirit upon all flesh. He also wants everybody to be crucified like Him, for love of the truth, in obedience to the will of God; because it is a necessary thing for the salvation of many hearts.

Now Jesus and his disciples set out for the villages of Caesarea Philippi. Along the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” They said in reply, “John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others one of the prophets.” And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter said to him in reply, “You are the Messiah.” Then he warned them not to tell anyone about him. He began to teach them that the Son of Man 7 must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days. He spoke this openly. Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. At this he turned around and, looking at his disciples, rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” He summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “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 and that of the gospel will save it.

Peter wants a glorious Messiah, full of honors, with on his chest a rich with medals human rack. He does not want a crucified Messiah and clearly says it to Jesus. This answers him with firmness, inviting him to take the place of the disciple, for he alone is the Master of humanity and nobody else. However, his master is the Father of Heaven, who guides him through his Holy Spirit, and this is pushing him firmly toward the holy city in which his sacrifice offered in atonement for sins, for the redemption of mankind would have been consummated. This his way must be of everyone of his disciples. The cross is his gift of love. It passes through the denial of the self. One abandons any thought of the earth and assumes all the thoughts of God.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels, and Saints help us on the way of the cross.