Overview:

The Memorial of Saint Leo the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church

A Reflection for the Memorial of Saint Leo the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church

“[Jesus] 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.’” (Mt 16:15-18)

Find today’s readings here.

“Who do you say that I am?” Jesus asked his disciples. In my imagination, Jesus asks the question with a sly smile. Because people simply did not know what to do with him. We still do not. Is he a prophet? A miracle worker? A magician? A fraud? A rebellion leader or peacekeeper? Is he a king on a pedestal or a brother whom I can talk to? Is he, as C. S. Lewis put it, Lord, liar or lunatic? 

Peter, who often gets it wrong in the Gospels, nails his answer here: Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus finds this answer so worthy of praise that he builds his very church upon the man, the rock, who professes it. Yet while Peter’s answer satisfied Jesus, it did not hold for this newly built church. 

The early church was obsessed with questions about Jesus’ nature: Was he God or human? Was he human when he did some things, like sleep and eat, and God when he did things like rise from the dead? Could we call his mother theotokos, God-bearer? 

Today, the church celebrates St. Leo the Great. He has a long list of accolades: He is one of two papal doctors of the church and is the first pope whose sermons are actually passed down to us to read today. He is also responsible for the not-so-small matter of convincing Atila the Hun to turn back and halt his invasion of the Italian peninsula. 

Today’s Gospel reading is fitting for Leo’s feast day because among his many accomplishments, he settled this major Christological crisis about Jesus’ nature. In the process, he solidified the understanding of primacy of the bishop of Rome, especially when handling doctrinal questions. On the question of Jesus’ nature, his famous “Tome” said: 

For not only is God believed to be both Almighty and the Father, but the Son is shown to be co-eternal with Him, differing in nothing from the Father because He is God from God, Almighty from Almighty, and being born from the Eternal one is co-eternal with Him; not later in point of time, not lower in power, not unlike in glory, not divided in essence: but at the same time the only begotten of the eternal Father was born eternal of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. And this nativity which took place in time took nothing from, and added nothing to that divine and eternal birth, but expended itself wholly on the restoration of man who had been deceived: in order that he might both vanquish death and overthrow by his strength, the Devil who possessed the power of death. For we should not now be able to overcome the author of sin and death unless He took our nature on Him and made it His own, whom neither sin could pollute nor death retain. 

When this was read aloud by his delegates at the Council of Chalcedon, it is said that the bishops gathered acclaimed together, “Peter has spoken through the mouth of Leo!” Today, we might ask St. Leo to pray for his successor today who shares his name, who has his own questions and controversies to settle. 

The Council of Chalcedon might have ruled on the hypostatic union of Christ, but Jesus’ question reverberates across time. He is still asking all of us, you, me and Pope Leo XIV: “But who do you say that I am?”

Zac Davis is an associate editor and the senior director for digital strategy for America. He also co-hosts the podcast, Jesuitical.