"But whom do you say that I am?” Jesus.

"But whom do you say that I am?”
Jesus.
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"But whom do you say that I am?”

Jesus puts this question to His disciples.

A disciple is one who follows his master closely,

step by step,

surrendering himself to his guidance.

Followers follow their master's teachings,

but disciples follow their master.

One cannot be a true disciple unless he knows his master through and through.

Lots of people followed Jesus to listen to His words and to get cured.

They were like the people of modern times

who attend prayer meetings,  

for healing and listening to the preacher.

In fact healing is for attracting people

and preaching  for giving them the word of God.

In plain words

healing is honey, 

word of God preached is medicine.

In the closer circle were the disciples,

who followed Jesus

wherever He went to listen to His words.

Jesus sent His disciples to other places to do what He did,  healing and preaching.

One day Jesus  gave  an oral test to His disciples, with two questions.

1. Who do people say that the Son of Man is?

2. But whom do you say that I am? 

In the first question He introduced Himself as ' the Son of Man'.

Of course the answer is 'Son of God.'

From the reply given by the disciples

we have to conclude

that the people who followed Him

did not know the real identity of Jesus.

Some of them  thought that He was
John the Baptist,

some,  Elijah,

some,  Jeremiah

some,  one of the prophets.

So from the words of the disciples we come to know that many people followed Jesus without knowing Him to be the Messiah.

The second question was  answered correctly  by Peter.

His correct answer earned for him

'the keys to the kingdom of heaven.'

Here we must note one thing.

In the first question,  the emphasis was on 'the people.'

In the second question the emphasis was on 'you'.

1. What do 'people' think?

2. What do 'you' think?

The answer to the questions brought out the difference between the disciples and the ordinary people.

I think that Jesus' questions are applicable to today's world too.

We can divide the Christians into two catagories. :

1. disciples,

2.  followers.

Each one should decide for himself whether he is a disciple or a follower.

One who sticks to the authentic teaching of the church is a disciple.

He may be a clergy,  religious man or a layman.

One who sticks to herd mentality in his belief is merely a follower.

What is herd mentality?

Before answering this question we have to answer another question :

What is truth?

The only answer to this question has already been given by Jesus Himself :

"I am truth."

So, Jesus is truth.

What Jesus has said about Himself is truth.

The possessor of Jesus is the
possessor of truth.

The Holy Apostolic Catholic Church is the only  possessor of Jesus and hence has truth.

Only the authentic teaching of the Catholic  Church about Jesus is truth.

Whatever we think, speak or write must tally with the teaching of the Catholic  Church.

Only one who believes in and practice the truth is a disciple of Jesus.

All the others,

who call themselves followers,

have at the same time different views about Jesus,

just like people of Jesus' time,

cannot be His disciples.

Now a number of churches have sprung up,

calling themselves the followers of Jesus,

but their beliefs are not original Christian beliefs

as they don't tally with Christ's teachings.

Though they call themselves Christians,

they have no respect for His dear Mother,

whom He loved so dearly.

They have no belief in the real presence of Jesus in Holy Eucharist.

They have no belief in the Sacrament of penance, confession.

Those who differ from Catholic Church

pose themselves as Jesus' disciples

and spread their views through  the social media

of the modern times.

But they  are not disciples of Jesus

as they have no belief in His original teaching

Some people tend to believe in whatever appears in the social media without verifying its veracity.

When one animal in a herd goes one way,

all the other animals follow it blindly

without verifying whether the first one goes the right way.

Of course they cannot verify as they are animals.

One who behaves like a herd in his beliefs is said to have herd mentality.

Today  it is very  easy to follow the herd mentality due to our blind  belief  in social media.

Now a days social media is like  a river which flows with a mixture of good and gutter water.

All kinds of people,

genuine believers,

heretics,

non believers etc.

take resort to social media

to give publicity to their views.

We must be careful

against the
circulation of rumours

and unofficial information

about what we must believe

and how we must behave.

Let us be real disciples

and side with Peter

to whom Jesus has entrusted

the keys  to the kingdom of heaven.

Lourdu Selvam