Lectio Divina — Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
behind
1. Lectio — Reading
> “Get behind me, Satan!”
— Matthew 16:23
There is something startling about the word behind. Peter has just confessed Jesus as the Christ, and yet almost immediately he tries to tell Christ what being the Christ ought to mean. He does not abandon Jesus; he attempts to redirect him. And Jesus recognizes the danger: “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
Perhaps that is the more subtle temptation in my own discipleship. I need not openly reject Christ to stand in his way. I can profess him, receive him in the Eucharist, pray to him, and still quietly insist that he follow the direction I have chosen.
“Get behind me” is therefore not merely a rebuke. It is a restoration of proper order. Jesus belongs in front. I belong behind him.
And so I ask myself: Am I following Jesus, or am I trying to get Jesus to follow me?
[Matthew 16:21–27 — USCCB](https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/16?21=&utm_source=chatgpt.com)
2. Meditatio — Meditation
When I was born, Edward was given to me as my middle name after Saint Edward the Confessor, a patron saint intended to give me some general direction for my life. Now, while visiting my son in Dallas this weekend, I find myself attending daily Mass at a parish bearing that same name: Saint Edward the Confessor.
It is one of those coincidences that makes me wonder whether what appears accidental might nevertheless become an invitation to pay attention.
And the word that catches me today is behind.
What kind of world do I want to leave behind?
The question immediately tempts me to think about accomplishments—what I have built, improved, written, planted, protected or passed along. Yet today’s Gospel turns the question around. Before asking what I will leave behind, perhaps I should ask whom I am following.
Peter’s problem was not that he wanted something obviously evil. He wanted to protect Jesus from suffering. Yet even this seemingly good intention became satanic when Peter placed his own judgment ahead of God’s. He tried to stand in front of Jesus rather than behind him.
I can do precisely the same thing.
I can become so convinced about the kind of world I want to leave behind that I begin demanding that Christ bless my vision of it. I can make efficiency, productivity, control, technology, possessions—even my own ideas of stewardship and goodness—the measure of whether my life has succeeded.
But discipleship asks something different: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”
Come after me.
Get behind me.
Perhaps Saint Edward’s patronage does give me a general direction after all—not toward some monument I must leave behind, but toward Christ walking ahead of me. My task is not to construct a world according to my own image and then ask Jesus to approve it. My task is to follow closely enough that whatever I eventually leave behind bears some trace of the path he chose.
The question becomes more personal:
When my life is finally behind me, will people see what I accomplished—or will they be able to see whom I followed?
3. Oratio — Prayer
Lord Jesus, when I try to walk ahead of you, put me back where a disciple belongs: behind you.
Through the prayers of Saint Edward the Confessor, teach me to follow rather than control, to discern rather than dictate, and to leave behind a life shaped by your Gospel.
Amen.
4. Contemplatio — Contemplation
The warning about the technocratic paradigm in Magnifica humanitas makes today’s “Get behind me” remarkably concrete.
Technology promises extraordinary possibilities, but the danger begins when a useful servant moves from behind humanity and takes the lead. Efficiency, control and profit then cease to be tools and become judges. Creation is valued according to its usefulness; people according to their productivity; and even my own life according to what I can accomplish.
Peter makes a similar mistake. He has an idea of how the Messiah ought to work, and when Jesus does not conform to it, Peter tries to correct him.
I can do that with Christ, and I can do it with creation.
If I want to leave a better world behind, I cannot simply ask how much more efficiently I can manage it. I must ask what place everything occupies. Technology has a place. Profit has a place. Efficiency has a place. My own plans have a place.
But they belong behind something greater: the dignity of the human person, the integrity of creation, the common good—and ultimately Christ.
So today, at a parish unexpectedly bearing the name of the saint whose name I have carried since birth, I hear Christ’s words personally:
Get behind me.
Perhaps that is the general direction I have been looking for all along.
Christ ahead.
Me behind.
And whatever I leave behind, entrusted to God.
Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
