NOTES for Mat 13:36-43

Today the focus of our attention is our own answer to Christ's question: "But who do you say that I am?" Humanly speaking, we can imagine the matter this way: you reflected on life and finally reasoned your way to the conclusion that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God. But He Himself says that it does not happen like this. Not flesh and blood, that is, not human nature and its capacities, revealed this to Peter, but Jesus' Father, who is in heaven. Therefore this faith is a gift of God, and, like every gift of His, it too must be asked for. It is absurd to sit and wait until the Almighty remembers you - He has never forgotten His creation. One must want Him to reveal the truth about Himself to you, and ask for this.

Enormous courage is required of Peter to utter these words. As long as one can treat Jesus as one of the prophets, a great spiritual or moral teacher, everything is simple and convenient for a person. But when you have accepted and confessed that He is the Son of God, your relations with the surrounding world and your whole life change. What we call human maturity is, in essence, the ability to say to God: "You are my Lord, You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God," and to draw practical conclusions from this. Then you become part of the Church - His people, whom the gates of hell will not overcome.

In addition, today's Gospel reading is one of the foundations of ecclesiology - the Church's teaching about herself. A brief account of this can be found in A. Lakirev's article "The Properties of the Church: Unity, Holiness, Catholicity, and Apostolicity" (RU).