21/08/2026
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND ITS RELEVANCE
By: Bro. Makilito B. Mahinay
INTRODUCTION. The Gospel for the 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time (Mt. 16:13-20) is about the founding of Jesus of a Church on Peter. when He said, βBlessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah.β ###. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.β
THE GOSPEL. The full text of the Gospel is quoted as follows:
βJesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi and
he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah,
still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter said in reply, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus said to him in reply, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Then he strictly ordered his disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.β
ONLY ONE CHURCH WAS FOUNDED. Crucial in our reflection is the fact that Jesus founded only one Church (both by the Holy Scripture [specifically the gospel we have just quoted] and by tradition). To repeat, only one. And of the many churches sprouting throughout the world, only the Catholic Church, and no other, identifies and traces its root to our Lord Jesus Christ.
In Mat. 18:15-17, Jesus gives the three-steps process of correcting a person: First. Go to the person alone. Tell them their fault. If they listen, you win them back. Second. If they do not listen, take one or two more people. This confirms the facts. And Third, If they refuse the witnesses, tell the church. If they ignore the church, treat them like an outsider or tax collector.
In reference to Step No. 3, imagine the chaos and confusion if there were many churches being founded. Which church to go and tell? Certainly the Church referred to by Jesus must be one which has a continuous binding authority by apostolic succession reckoned from Peter, to whom Jesus has said βI will give you keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.β Meaning, the Church is destined to survive after Peter (together with the other 11 apostles), the first Vicar of Christ and so on until the end of time.
EMBODIMENT OF ITS FOUNDER. Our Catholic Church must be the embodiment of its Founder. As such, it can not be free of sufferings including those caused by its detractors even from within. Inherent in its nature, is unparalleled and unmatched humility as it chooses silence as its very argument to quell those who will ceaselessly question and criticize its authority, spit on it, curse it with the vilest profanities, i.e., βHaven of Satanβ and its Pope as the Anti-Christ, its Bishops as blind guides, etc. As Jesus too was called βBeelzebulβ, the other name of the Devil (Mk. 3:22). And yet He continues to love them all.
As the very church founded by God Himself, central in its mission is the very desire and deep yearning of God to embrace all humanity just βas a hen gathers her chicks under her wingsβ (Mat. 23:27), regardless of culture, race, status, color and religion.
The Catholic Church on its own makes itself available, accessible and ready to bleed for all. It has Mother Mary, the refuge and help of all sinners in bringing them to Jesus. As Jesus entered and had lived in all the difficult situations in the beatitudes namely: poverty, mourning, persecutions, etc., (Mat. 5:1-12), the Church also commits to go and to be led to where Jesus went in His search for all the prodigal children He loves without bound.
Jesus is the hidden Third Son in the story of the prodigal son (Lk 15:11-32). Mysteriously, the sufferings in the beatitudes become sources of the Churchβs strength as it also sets itself as paragon in the obedience and practice of the command on its people to love their enemies. This must be so because God is Love. It follows that any teaching which hates an enemy to the end does not come from God.
NO OTHER PATH BUT MARTYRDOM. Without compromising its mission to preach the Gospel, the Church is prepared to stumble, to be mocked and ridiculed, to be criticized, to be left and abandoned in the same experience of its Founder in the road to Golgotha, and also no different when Jesus was left by the more than 5,000 people he had fed out of the five loaves and two fish because they can not accept the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist He was about to establish during His last supper with His apostles. So Jesus asked the twelve, βDo you want to leave too?β (Jn. 6:67); βCan you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?β (Mk. 19:38). In Lk 18:8,
Jesus also prophesied, βWhen the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?β. It is not remote that there will come a time that the Church will ask the same question to Itself. As its founder died on the cross for the redemption of many, those who profess to follow His footsteps accept the same fate of martyrdom, in answer to the same three-time repeated question of Jesus to Peter, βDo you love me?β (Jn. 21:15β17).
THE INTERTWINING OF THE HOLY TRINITY AND THE HUMAN FAMILY. As Catholics we profess that creation, salvation, and the new creation are acts of God in His three divine persons, the Blessed Trinity. As One, yet in three divine persons, God reveals FAMILY as His fundamental attribute. And the sacred union of the three (out of love founded on free will), further reveals the self institution of the sacrament of MARRIAGE in Him. Then, from both (divine family and marriage), comes LIFE. So that FAMILY, MARRIAGE and LIFE, sum up the three basic natures or attributes of God.
When God created man and woman (the first human family) in His on image and likeness, innate in them are His above fundamental natures because not only that He united and made the two as one, He also made them procreator of life, and in their union He (God) made Himself the invisible Third Pillar. In that backdrop, the first human family becomes the reflection of the Blessed Trinity, whose ultimate mission must be to protect and preserve Its basic attributes: FAMILY, MARRIAGE and LIFE. There can be no deviation from this template.
THE HOLY FAMILY AND THE HOLY TRINITY. The first human family (Adam and Eve) faltered as it rejected God because of sin. But through a new human family, God not only makes a perfect reflection but also an embodiment of His divine nature as a Blessed Trinity. How? By making Himself, in His second divine person (God the Son) as the new Adam, named Jesus, to be conceived and born as the Offspring of the Woman named Mary (Gen. 3:15) by the power of the Holy Spirit, married to a man named Joseph a descendant of David. In this way, God makes Himself inextricably bonded forever with humanity, by making Maryβs and Josephβs genealogy both of the house of David His own genealogy (Mat. 1:1-17).
THE PROMISE OF INDESTRUCTIBILITY. So that with God as the very founder of the Catholic Church, it does not only carry the hallmarks of the Blessed Trinity, God made Himself as its very head and the very heart, as guaranty of its indestructibility. So that in the same gospel, God makes the solemn promise on the Church He founded, βand the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.β This promise makes Godβs love for this Church a very deep and fathomless mystery.
THE WEAKNESS THAT CONQUERS ALL. Without the Blessed Trinity being integral in the Catholic Church, it can not carry its task and mission. It has its own weakness bearing in mind the human frailties of the personalities in its hierarchy starting from the Pope, Bishops, priests, religious and consecrated lays.
The βgates of hellβ will capitalize on that weakness in their attack on the Church. But it is this weakness that has defeated the Devil when the Son of God turned into a Son of Man died on the cross on the Good Friday only to rise on Easter Sunday.
Who can question Godβs way of allowing His own creation to collaborate in the stewardship of both Heaven and Earth in the person of the Blessed Mother, when she conceived and nourished Jesus, the Son of God in her womb?
Like the hierarchy of the Church, the ordinary lays, are the frontline partakers of the basic task and mission of the Church - the ultimate bulwark in the protection of the sanctity of FAMILY, MARRIAGE and LIFE.
THE CROSS OF VICTORY. In our humanity, we have nothing to brag except the cross of victory we faithfully carry everyday in our journey in life according to our respective callings. As it is, the Catholic Church is the expanded Blessed Trinity here on earth. It is the fulfillment of the βTHY KINGDOM COMEβ in the Lordβs Prayer. It does not have only the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven but the Kingdom of Heaven itself for wherever the Triune God is, there is thy Kingdom.
Each one must realize the crucial role of the Church to our salvation. From now on, let us all learn to love our Church.
WISHING EVERYONE A BLESSED CELEBRATION OF THE 21ST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME!
