26th September. Friday, Week 25

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Saints Cosmas and Damian, martyrs.

The twin brothers, Cosmas and Damian, were Christian physicians in Cilicia, Turkey. Arrested during the Diocletian persecution, they refused to recant and after savage tortures they were beheaded, along with their three younger brothers. In the Eastern Orthodox Church they are venerated as the Unmercenary Physicians (anargyroi, “without money”). In Rome pope Felix IV (526–530) rededicated the Library of Peace in the Forum of Vespasian as the basilica of Ss Cosmas and Damian. The church still has sixth-century mosaics illustrating the martyr twins. Cosmas and Damian are invoked in the Roman Canon of the Mass and are held as the patrons of physicians and surgeons. Icons depict them vested as holding medicine boxes and a spoon with which to dispense medicine.

First Reading: Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

(There is an appointed time for everything under the sun. Yearnings stir in the human heart.)

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die; a
time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones,
and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace,
and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace. What gain have the workers from their toil?
I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with.

He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginnng to the end.

Gospel: Luke 9:18-22

(Peter recognises the Messiah, then Jesus announces his death and resurrection.)

Once when Jesus was praying alone, with only the disciples near him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” They answered, “John the Baptist; but others, Elijah; and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “The Messiah of God.”

He sternly ordered and commanded them not to tell anyone, saying, “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

Memorable moments

Life’s highs and lows are represented in today’s text from Qoheleth, so often read at funerals. “There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. A time to be born, and a time to die,” etc. The author combines purpose (“an appointed time for everything”) with the timeless and monotonous. We never seem to complete the pursuit of our desires and objectives. We interpret this reaction as a healthy way of making decisions and an equally healthy way of knowing that “here we have no lasting city; we are seeking one which is to come” (Hebrews 13:14).

The Gospel recognizes a supremely new “moment” in the coming of Jesus – whom Peter’s faith proclaims as the Messiah, an important episode which Matthew and Mark locate in Caesarea Philippi. Like Mark (8:29ff), Luke has here no mention of Peter being appointed as Rock and Bearer of the Keys, but rather passes straight on to the sombre prediction of the Passion. One must presume that Matthew’s famous text about the Petrine primacy (16:16-20) is an inspired, post-resurrectional interpretation of Saint Peter’s role, in light of the wonderful ministry actually carried out by Peter, and illustrated in Acts 1-12. Clearly, Jesus preferred the title “Son of Man” for himself, rather than Messiah; for it was better suited to carry the hard, sacrificial aspect of his ministry: He has come to serve, not to be served (Mk 8:45), and this is a truth that Peter, the Twelve and all of us, must learn again and again.

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