In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Joyous feast! Joyous feast!

"Who do you say that I am?"

It's a big question. It is the big question. If we start from the wrong understanding, we will miss everything that comes after.

Peter, as we just heard in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, answers excellently—most excellently: "You are the Christ, the son of the living God." And Jesus tells them that he gives this answer not according to flesh and blood, but according to the Spirit, that this is the rock upon which He will build His church. It is the foundation of faith upon which everything depends, against which Hades fails and toward which heaven opens.

This is the good answer, the best of answers. Truly. It is one that confirms Peter as one of the leaders of the apostles in days to come, and he will through this faith lead a life of great witness that will end in martyrdom, confirming the faith that he has proclaimed here today. But he gives this good answer only after giving wrong answers in various ways many times in the Gospel, before and after. Above all, when he denies the Lord three times after His betrayal that long night before Jesus's crucifixion.

We celebrate Peter as one of the leaders of the apostles, bearing this in mind. And Paul, the other of these great leaders that we rejoice in today, also answered profoundly wrong for a great time. Zealously pursuing Christians, helping to have them carried out, punished, and killed because they preached the gospel of Jesus Christ—until at last on the road to Damascus he hears the great question from the Lord: "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" And Saul—who later was renamed Paul as we know him, the apostle—at last understood that what he had been doing was not pleasing to God, but terrible, hateful, destructive—that he had been blind and needed to be given sight.

Both Peter and Paul, by their own strength, by their own will, fell. But the strength and the good will of Jesus Christ raised them up and established them as the leaders of the apostles, as the chief proclaimers of that apostolic faith which spreads to the ends of the universe, even to us here in Meriden, Connecticut today. It is upon this foundation of faith which they proclaim, that we receive everything that we have. It is according to this that we build our own lives. But pay attention to how it is that you build. Pay attention to how it is that you answer this great question: "Who do you say that I am?"

Because you see, whether you hear it or not, this is the question that the Lord Jesus Christ is asking every day of your life. For you, is He the Christ, the Son of the living God? The Lord of your own life worthy of the best that you have to offer? Or do you deny Him, hiding the truth because it is difficult, because it's scary, because you find people are offended by it? Do you deny Him through hypocrisy, through affirming Christ and His church with your lips, while through your actions undermining everything that the Gospel stands for? You deny Him through choosing your own will, rather than seeking the good will of God.

Do you witness to the apostolic faith through the details of your life? Through the activity and the fullness of your hearts? Through love for God with all of your heart, with all your strength, with all your soul, with all your heart, loving your neighbor as yourself? Or do you persecute Christ by failing to see His image in the persons you confront each day, revealing instead a heart full of selfishness and resentment, hatred and division, fear and lust?

Brothers and sisters, in His great mercy Christ has established His church, coming down to our level, meeting us where we are. All we have to do is be willing to step into this place that He has arranged for us, this way that He has established for us, to lead us into the full knowledge of God and what is pleasing to Him and what gives us life.

We approach Him with fear—rightfully with fear—knowing how far short we fall, knowing that we are indeed bad witnesses of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But we also approach with faith and with love, because we know that the Lord offers His grace in our need. As we heard from the epistle today, the Apostle Paul—that great persecutor, now the great leader of our faith—tells us of his own experience when the answer to his desperate prayer was simply: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness."

And that is the Lord's answer to you and to me. He gives us this grace, meeting us in our weakness with His strength. We approach in our infirmity with our faith so the power of Christ may be shown ever more in us. Amen.

Joyous feast!