[00:00:05] Hello, my name is Sally Moriarty-Flask. Welcome to: From His Word to Our Hearts, my weekly Bible Study podcast. Together we will explore the readings to be proclaimed at the Catholic Mass on Sunday, August 30, 2026, the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time.
[00:00:24] This week's episode is entitled: The G.O.A.T. or A Goat? And in these readings, we are reminded that Simon Peter went from being the hero of the disciples or THE G.O.A.T. (Greatest of All Time – G.O.A.T.) to A goat… the disciple who stumbled visibly and spectacularly. Which doesn't make it any better when it happens to us, but at least it puts us in good company!
[00:00:57] As we journey through the readings this week, consider the following:
Peter went from being the rock upon which Jesus would build his Church to a stumbling block… from getting the right answer to getting things all wrong! That can happen to us when we listen to the wrong message, when we distort the Gospel of Jesus, and choose to follow ONLY the teachings we like while ignoring the entirety of his message. All too often we concentrate more on what the world says… on what influencers and politicians say… and less on what Jesus said. Paul reminds us NOT to be conformed to this world, to instead be living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. But if we don't listen to God, how can our actions be acceptable to him?
Before we go any further, I want to mention that my home parish will be celebrating our Patronal Feast this Sunday, rather than the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time. Since we are named for Pope Saint Pius X, we have the option of transferring his feast day (which is August 21st) to a Sunday… and that is what we have done. So, as we celebrate the Solemnity of Pope Saint Pius X this weekend, the prayers for the Mass will be different, but we will still use the regular assigned Readings.
[00:02:35] So, let's begin in prayer:
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Heavenly Father, the world constantly finds new ways to draw our attention away from you and distort what your Son taught to fit a narrative that does not conform to your ways. Help us put such worldly hindrances behind us. Strengthen us to focus our minds, our hearts, and our wills on becoming living sacrifices that serve you and others. May who we are and what we do be acceptable to you every day. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[00:03:29] Now that we've opened our hearts in prayer, let's listen to what God is telling us in the Scriptures.
[00:03:35] Our Gospel this week is from Matthew 16: 21-27.
“Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you.’ But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men.’ Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life? For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done.’”
[00:04:59] This week's passage begins where last week's passage left off… and in it, Peter goes from being THE G.O.A.T. (the Greatest of all Time - as that term is understood in today's parlance) to a very different type of goat (a spectacular failure - as it was understood not too terribly long ago)!
[00:05:23] Peter went from the heights of receiving God's revelation about Jesus… from basking in the glow of being praised by Jesus… to letting his own personal pride get the best of him and having Jesus turn and call him Satan! He went from being the defender of Jesus' nascent Church to being Satan's unwitting puppet. This turnabout should stand as a stark reminder to us as well! It reminds us that we should never bask in the admiration of others or ourselves - that sort of hubris only invites our downfall.
Instead of accumulating accolades for all the good things we think we've done, or others think we've done… we should be looking for the next good thing we can do… the next kindness we can share… the next opportunity to be generous… the next helping hand we can extend to someone else!
[00:06:32] Now, one other thing I want to mention is that - in the Biblical text - this passage begins with the words: “From that time” but those who compiled the Lectionary chose not to include those words here.
[00:06:47] However, those words are significant because Matthew used those exact words back in Chapter 4 to indicate something new - the beginning of Jesus' Galilean ministry, while here in Chapter 16, Matthew uses them again to signal a change in Jesus' ministry - a new focus, a new direction (both literally and figuratively) - as Jesus now looks toward Jerusalem where he will experience his Passion, Death, and Resurrection.
[00:07:32] So, let's join the narrative and see what happens…
“Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.
[00:07:50] This is the first time Jesus predicts his Death and Resurrection to his disciples so they must have been quite shocked! And notice, Matthew says: “Jesus began to show his disciples” - this may be the first time Jesus reveals those events to his disciples, but we know that it won't be the last.
[00:08:14] We have heard these Scriptures over and over… they are familiar to us - so familiar that we sometimes forget just how earth shattering those words must have been when the disciples first heard them.
And notice also that Matthew doesn't quote Jesus' words here! I've always found that omission to be quite revealing… because I think that, more than anything, really shows us that the disciples simply couldn't wrap their minds around what Jesus said. And Peter's next words really reinforce that…
“Peter took [Jesus] and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you.’”
[00:09:08] Up to this point, it never occurred to Peter that Jesus wouldn't succeed… that Jesus' ministry wouldn't ultimately be successful. And let's face it… Peter got a bit ahead of himself!
Reveling in Jesus' words of praise and, likely, a bit of smug self-satisfaction surrounding his newly declared role as official leader of Jesus' Church, Peter simply and understandably just got a little ahead of himself.
He heard the words Jesus actually said - whatever they may have been - but understood them from a purely human frame of reference. He understood them only as Peter the man… not as Peter the disciple, and certainly not as Peter the rock and foundation of Jesus’ Church. Jesus, however, corrects Peter… immediately and stridently!
“[Jesus] turned to Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; you are not on the side of God, but of men.’”
The RSV uses the word hindrance; the NAB translates that as obstacle. But it can also mean a stumbling block or a stumbling stone - which contrasts more directly with Peter as the rock upon whom Jesus will build his Church. Peter has allowed his purely human concern for Jesus to cloud his perception and so he cannot yet see the spiritual necessity of Jesus’ Passion.
This interaction between Jesus and Peter, and especially Jesus invoking the name Satan, should remind us of the devil tempting Jesus in the desert wilderness. Remember, the devil offered Jesus a path to world domination without his having to endure the Cross. Jesus rejected the devil's temptation then, and he rejects Peter's well-intentioned but absolutely wrong assessment here because neither align with God's plan for salvation. There is no legitimate path that leads Jesus to the Resurrection which does not involve the Cross.
[00:11:58] “Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.’”
Jesus demanded of his disciples a commitment of faith… he demands the same thing of us! A commitment of faith and an embrace of God's will, no matter where it leads… even if it leads to embarrassment, even if it leads to rejection or exclusion, even if it leads to persecution. Jesus is saying that - as Christians, as his followers - we must love to the point of self-sacrifice… to the point of suffering for others… even to the point of death, if necessary.
[00:12:55] And while taking up one's cross has become a common phrase for us as modern Christians, in Biblical times, crucifixion wasn't talked about publicly - it was a brutal and shameful way to die, and it certainly wasn't something that it was anyone would embrace willingly.
[00:13:18] “For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
This sentence always seems a bit illogical to us. And we ask ourselves - how can we lose our life if we save it? But Jesus is talking about saving our lives in this world at the expense of life in the next… he means that we can gain the temporal world but lose eternity with God… that our souls will be destined for eternal separation from God in the next life.
And that when we lose our life for Jesus’ sake then we may lose the temporal world, but we gain eternity in the kingdom. And there are lots of ways we can lose our lives… physical death is the most extreme and final example, certainly, but there are other ways we can lose how we define our lives, ways that don't involve physical death - things like losing our families, our health, our homes, our jobs, our reputation - whatever we feel defines us and our place in this world.
[00:15:01] “For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life?”
[00:15:09] The things of this world are just things - even fortune, power, fame, possessions… they're just things. And things are just things! And we can't take those things with us into the next life!
[00:15:29] So, those things hold little value when compared to eternity with God. But when our wants - when our desires - are improperly ordered, we see those things of this world as being more important. But they're not… things are just things.
[00:15:57] “Or what shall a man give in return for his life?”
Basically, that means that when it comes time for us to be judged, we can't bribe the judge… we can't bribe Jesus.
[00:16:14] He knows our heart, our mind, our actions, and even our intentions. We can't fool him and we can't bribe him. If all of our efforts in this world were devoted to preserving our life, our status, and our wealth here in this temporal world, Jesus will know… and we will forfeit the kingdom, we will be separated from him for all eternity.
“For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done.”
[00:17:09] When we are judged, when we offer Jesus the sum total of our lives, he will determine what repayment we will receive. Again, we can't fool Jesus and we can't bribe him. When we experience physical death - each and every one of us will present the lives we lived to Jesus. We will not be able to hide from the reality of everything we did - for good or ill. Everything will be laid bare and we will be judged on all of it… our words, our thoughts, our actions, our social media posts, our love for others, our willingness to forgive others, our commitment to doing God's work, and the times we failed to do so.
And we also have to remember that we are not simply human bodies that are temporarily inhabited by a soul… we are an integral union of body and soul. Our bodies and our souls will exist together throughout all eternity - we profess that in the Creed: I believe in the resurrection of the body.
And yes, our souls animate our bodies, but they also define who we are; they are the deepest and most abiding dimension of self; they are what put us in contact with God, during this life and in the next.
[00:19:19] And God IS love… he chooses to love us so that we will love him in return.
[00:19:33] Saint Thomas Aquinas (13th century philosopher, Dominican priest, Doctor of the Church, and one of the greatest theologians of all time), wrote that love is willing the good of the other - that it is a choice, an act of will, not an emotion.
[00:19:55] That is the type of love God asks of us… not some fluffy romantic emotion, but a real, lasting commitment of mind and will - a choice to love him and, by extension, to love others because of him.
[00:20:20] And when we are rightly ordered, when we are oriented toward God rather than self… then everything is rightly ordered… our lives, our wills, our choices, our souls are all rightly ordered and we will have no fear of losing eternity because we will have lost our lives for Jesus’ sake.
[00:20:54] That is how we listen to the right message, to what Jesus said rather than what the world says. That is how we become living sacrifices that are holy and acceptable to God, as Paul will tell us to do in our Second Reading.
Peter's scolding of Jesus in today's Gospel reminds us that anyone can make a mistake, but that we are always given another chance to listen to God so that our actions can become acceptable to him… every day.
[00:21:45] That takes us to our First Reading, which is from Jeremiah 20: 7-9.
“O LORD, you have deceived me, and I was deceived; you are stronger than I, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all the day; every one mocks me. For whenever I speak, I cry out, I shout, ‘Violence and destruction!’ For the word of the LORD has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.”
Jeremiah is one of the four Major Prophets in the Old Testament - along with Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. Jeremiah served as a prophet in the Southern Kingdom of Judah in the late 7th and early 6th centuries BC.
[00:22:57] He was sometimes called the Weeping Prophet or the Prophet of Doom because he preached a message of truth about God and the peoples’ need for repentance but was soundly and repeatedly rejected.
[00:23:16] Jeremiah is also seen by Christians as a “type” or prefigurement of Christ… both were young and unmarried, both felt deep sadness for their people, both were rejected by the Jewish religious authorities, both were persecuted, and where Jeremiah PROPHESIED about a new covenant, Jesus established a New Covenant.
[00:23:50] And you may remember that we heard a later part of this same discourse back in June on the 12th Sunday in Ordinary time. So, let's listen to what Jeremiah has to say to God in this first part of his discourse…
“O LORD, you have deceived me, and I was deceived; you are stronger than I, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all the day; every one mocks me.”
With those words, Jeremiah begins presenting a series of complaints to God following the latest persecution he was forced to endure. And while in the RSV, when Jeremiah says he was deceived - in the NAB, he says duped.
[00:24:41] While those two words are quite similar, the difference between them comes down to intent. Being deceived means that someone has been misled or lied to, and while being duped certainly starts with being misled, the intent of such deception is to cause deliberate embarrassment. So, we can tell from Jeremiah's words, particularly in the NAB, that he is quite perturbed.
The day before this speech takes place, Pashur, one of the temple priests, had beaten Jeremiah and locked him in stocks at the Upper Benjamin Gate (which is the northern gate of the temple court), a place that would have been highly visible and very conspicuous.
[00:25:35] And the type of stocks that imprisoned Jeremiah were not the type that we would typically picture. These stocks weren't the kind used only to subject people to public ridicule, they were actually used for torture… they restrained the feet, hands, and neck in such a way that the body was twisted, folded over almost in half, causing increasingly severe muscle cramping the longer the restraint lasted. And Jeremiah spent an entire day AND night confined in that manner. After all of that, Jeremiah was pretty irritated… with God.
“For whenever I speak, I cry out, I shout, ‘Violence and destruction!’”
[00:26:28] Jeremiah had the unenviable task of trying to convince the people of Judah, a people steeped in immorality and idolatry, that their lack of fidelity to the Covenant will eventually bring about their destruction at the hands of the Babylonians. Jeremiah announces that violence and destruction are to be the fate of the people of Judah, but his words are always met with violence and destruction. Jeremiah was mocked, put on trial, banned from the temple, imprisoned, beaten, tortured, and left to die in a muddy cistern… all because he was serving as God's messenger.
“For the word of the LORD has become for me a reproach and derision all day long.”
The vocation of a prophet was never easy - is never easy. The world rarely wants to listen when God's words become uncomfortable.
[00:27:48] Yet prophets persevere… they proclaim God's message to people that don't want to listen, and they do so in spite of the difficulties and challenges - the reproach and derision - they are often forced to endure.
“If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak anymore in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.”
[00:28:20] Poor Jeremiah is trapped between the people who will not listen to him and God who will not allow him to remain silent.
[00:28:32] And we have to understand… Jeremiah feels as if he is being subjected to ill treatment from both sides!
[00:28:43] On the one hand, we just heard all the terrible things that the people of Judah inflicted upon Jeremiah. And now he says that the compulsion God has placed upon him is so great, that his need to deliver God's message to the people of Judah is so impossible to deny, that it has become a burden to him… so much so that he feels he is experiencing physical discomfort. Jeremiah really had no idea what he was getting himself into when God called him to be a prophet, he laments the situation in which he finds himself, but he also realizes that it is impossible to deny God's call.
[00:29:37] There may be times in our lives when the words of Jesus seem difficult to follow… times that being a faithful Christian can seem like a burden… times that we are pressured by society to think and do and say things that we know run counter to the Gospel.
In those instances, we need to ask ourselves what Jesus asked in our Gospel… is it really so important for us to gain the things of this world - influence, accolades, power, wealth - if they require us to distort the Gospel and lose eternity with Jesus? Or is it perhaps more important to give up some of the perks of this transient life, to deny ourselves and carry our crosses, if it means remaining faithful to the Gospel and thereby gaining eternity with Jesus?
[00:31:07] That takes us to our Responsorial Psalm, which is Psalm 63, and the refrain is:
“O God, you are my God, my soul thirsts for you.”
And here are the verses:
“O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where no water is.”
“So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your merciful love is better than life, my lips will praise you.”
“So I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on your name. My soul is feasted as with marrow and fat, and my mouth praises you with joyful lips.”
“For you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy. My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.”
[00:32:18] This Psalm is an Individual Lament. The Psalmist compares his desire for God to a burning thirst that leaves him parched and exhausted. He says that he yearns to be present in the temple, the place on earth where God's presence dwells, but until that desire can be realized, he is forced to spend many sleepless nights during which he meditates on God and asks for his divine assistance. As all laments do, this Psalm ends with an expression of praise to God.
[00:33:02] That takes us to our Second Reading, which is from Romans 12: 1-2.
“I appeal to you, therefore, [brothers and sisters], by the mercies of God, to present your body bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
[00:33:42] This is our 12th passage from Romans, and it is, as you could easily hear, quite short. We are getting close to the end of our trek through Romans; we will only hear two more passages in this section of Ordinary Time before we move on to another of Paul's letters. And just like last week, this passage from Romans takes up where the previous week's passage ended. Up to this part of his letter, Paul has covered a number of topics… each building on those that came before.
[00:34:24] He talked about sin and reminded us that Jesus died for us while we were still sinners… he talked about Baptism and adoption… he talked about receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit and being guided by the Spirit… he reminded us that we are conformed to Christ so nothing should separate us from Christ… he talked to Jews and Gentiles about Jews and Gentiles… and last week he reminded us that God is beyond our human understanding.
[00:35:10] Now, Paul begins talking about what it means to live and behave in ways that are appropriate for a true Christian… irrespective of having a starting point as a Jew or a Gentile. So, let's listen to what Paul has to say…
“I appeal to you therefore, [brothers and sisters], by the mercies of God,”
Just like every other topic in Romans, this section builds on a previous topic Paul already addressed. He just devoted a lot of attention to God's mercy in the previous section of this letter, right? You (Gentiles) were once disobedient but have now received mercy. And they (the Jews) have been disobedient that by the mercy shown to you (to the Gentiles), they (the Jews) also receive mercy. And God consigned all men to disobedience that he may have mercy upon all. Now Paul appeals to his entire audience, Jews and Gentiles, through God's abundant mercy. And what exactly is he asking?
[00:36:41] “to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God,”
First of all, we need to understand that the Jews who heard this would have considered that an impossibility. To the Jewish mind, sacrifices had to be killed before they could be offered to God. But Paul now offers the Jewish mind a different perspective!
And by extension he reminds all Christians WHAT we are called to be… what it really means to live and behave like a true Christian. Because - for Christians – sacrifice, self-denial is ongoing and unending - or at least it's supposed to be.
[00:37:38] It begins with Baptism, but it doesn't end there… it is supposed to continue throughout our lives. And remember, everything Paul says in this letter builds upon what came before, so let's think back to Paul's teaching about Baptism, because he taught that we experience a type of death when we are immersed in the waters of Baptism… that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death… we die to sin and rise to new life in Christ. Because, Paul asks, how can we who died to sin still live in it?
[00:38:30] Meaning that through our Baptism we receive the grace from God that enables us to sacrifice our own self-centered wants and desires so that we can serve God AND other people, so that we can serve God IN other people.
[00:38:53] That God's grace empowers us to set aside our selfish needs so that we can do God's work in the world. That we die to ourselves so that we can live for God and that his grace emboldens us to carry out the mission he sets before us… because each of us has some sort of mission assigned to us - and only to us - by God.
[00:39:32] And that involves more than just not doing wrong… it's not just avoiding sin… it means actively, mindfully, deliberately doing good, helping others, serving others… and thereby serving God!
[00:39:57] Saint John Henry Newman (19th century English theologian, priest, and author, himself a convert to Catholicism from the Anglican Church), wrote about that very thing: “God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I shall do His work.”
[00:40:37] So, when we live in a right manner all of the promises that we made, or that were made on our behalf, when we were Baptized - then we will be living sacrifices which are holy and acceptable to God.
“which is your spiritual worship.”
[00:41:02] And that is Paul's logical conclusion… meaning that when we live acceptable, holy, moral lives then everything we do to serve God is a type of worship… that it is perfectly proper for us, as God's created beings, to live in such a way as to worship our Creator at all times.
[00:41:36] That we who possess human bodies, animated by our spiritual souls - those seeds of eternity that originate in God and that we bear within ourselves - that it is right and proper for us to offer spiritual worship by choosing to live holy and moral lives, which we can only do because we are strengthened by God's grace.
[00:42:12] Then Paul instructs the Romans…
“Do not be conformed to this world”
[00:42:20] We can, and should, absolutely appreciate the goodness of God's creation - all of God's creation. God declared everything he created to be good, and he instructed mankind to care for the earth, our common home, as Pope Francis reminded us in his encyclical: “Laudato Si.”
[00:42:47] Unfortunately, because of sin - not everything in our world remains in the condition God originally created it. So, we are to care for God's creation - our world and all the things that are in in it - but not be conformed to it, not focus solely on the good (or at times not so good) things of this world.
“but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,”
Through the grace of Baptism, through God's abundant mercy, through our ongoing
self-sacrifice and self-denial, through the grace we continue to receive in the Sacraments, we will continually be transformed… we will be conformed to the image of Christ.
[00:44:02] And think back, Paul said all Christians are predestined TO BE CONFORMED to Jesus!
“that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
[00:44:20] The NAB translation uses the word pleasing rather than acceptable - which doesn't indicate any real difference in meaning, rather it speaks more to the extent of God's approval. With acceptable (the word used here in the RSV translation) being sort of a minimal standard, while pleasing (the word used in the NAB translation) implies a level that is not just acceptable, but better… greater… more.
[00:44:51] And Paul is saying that, through our actions we demonstrate to the world that which is good, and acceptable or pleasing, and perfect… that when we live and behave as true Christians, we show the world God's will - and that is what's really important about our lives as Christians!
[00:45:20] But we can't do it alone! Remember, we are the Mystical Body of Christ - we all have a place in the Mystical Body, and we all have to work together… we all have to help each other, and we all have to rely on God's mercy and his grace.
[00:45:43] Earlier, in Romans, Paul wrote that: “the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” and it is that love, that Holy Spirit, that gives us the strength to work together, to help each other, to love others by choosing… through an act of will - as Saint Thomas Aquinas taught - to want only what is good for them, to love each other as God loves us.
[00:46:23] And it is that love, that Holy Spirit, that gives us the strength to work together, to help each other, to love each other as God loves us, with the love God first gives to us, to serve each other and thereby serve God.
[00:46:53] But we can't do that when we listen to the wrong message…
We can't do that when the Gospel is distorted…
We can't do that when we decide we will only follow the teachings of Jesus that we like or that we think align with a particular political or social agenda…
We can't do that when we allow ourselves to be conformed more to the world and less to Jesus…
[00:47:32] So, let's not do any of that! Let's listen to the right message, let's accept and live ALL of Jesus’ Gospel message, let's allow God's grace to conform us to Christ, because then we will be holy and acceptable to God!
[00:47:57] If you would like to reach out to me with questions or comments, send me an email at
[email protected]
Thank you for spending this time with me and until next we meet, may God shower his blessings upon you like a soft and gentle rain, and may he hold you safe and secure in the palm of his hand.
From His Word to Our Hearts is produced by SFS Audio Solutions.
The content of the show was assembled by me, Sally Moriarty-Flask.
Our music was composed by Jimmy Flask and is used with the permission of the composer. All rights reserved.
Information regarding references used in preparing the exegesis for this podcast is available upon request.
Thank you for listening and God Bless.
And for those members of my home parish, Happy Feast of Pope Saint Pius X!
