The Nazareth Page - A gospel meditation for your home
August 23, 2026 – Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time - Matthew 16:13-20
REFLECTION QUESTIONS:
Download this simple process to Prepare for Sunday using the Observe, Judge, Act Method
Today’s gospel highlights Peter’s “confession” that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Then Jesus informs Peter that he will be the rock upon which the church will be built. An amazing declaration. And also the church will prevail against all that are against it.
This affirms a direct connection between earth and heaven. What is joined on earth will be joined in heaven and whatever is separated on earth will be separated in heaven. And that’s where I begin today’s reflection: the reality of a comprehensive inter- connection between what happens here on Earth directly becomes part of heaven. (And who knows where else, given that God has created the whole cosmos?) All reality can be and is connected. The divine with the human, God with all creation. As it is in Jesus. And now Jesus is stating that connection to Peter.
In other words, we (and all creation) are not alone. The whole cosmos is not alone. Never! God did not create the universe and then stepped back, so to speak, and passively watch it unfold. God remained connected in support of its development. This means that God exists everywhere there is a “there.” And most important, all events here are joined to what’s exists in heaven. Past, present and future.
And this is a developmental process. Cosmologists and astronomers have discovered that truth during our lifetimes. They have concluded with certainty that our universe began 13.8 billion years ago from a very small “package” of energy and matter and has been expanding in size ever since. How is that possible? Why did it happen? And I add a question philosophers have asked: Why is there something and not nothing?
As a believer in God. especially as God as revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, I see connectivity in all things. St. Ignatius Loyola at the end of the Spiritual Exercises he created asks us “to find God in all things.” That is no small challenge. But it is possible to do so.
Today’s gospel concluded with the words of Jesus, “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven,” As a lifelong Catholic I learned that this was the basis of the Sacrament of Reconciliation (once called Penance). I believe that this “process “of connection applies to everything!
David M. Thomas, PhD