"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;
whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16: 15-19)
Today we
celebrate the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter the Apostle. This feast
commemorates the teaching authority of the Vicar of Christ. Pope Benedict XIV tells
us, “Celebrating the ‘Chair’ of Peter
means attributing a strong spiritual significance to it and recognizing it as a
privileged sign of the love of God.” From the very beginning Christ knew
that he would only be here on earth for a short time and would need a successor
to continue on the good works which he began. Peter knew who Jesus was because
he opened his heart to the Father and God reveled this to him. His was a true
conversion but it didn’t happen overnight. During the time that Peter was with Jesus
he grew in his faith. We see several examples of this in the gospels. When
Jesus approached them walking on the water, Peter says to him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to
you on the water.” Jesus does this
and Peter begins to walk on the water but then gets frightened and begins to
sink. He cries out, “Lord, save me!”
And immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and saved him. Later during the
Passion of Christ we see that Peter denies Jesus not once but three times.
Through the mercy of God he is forgiven and comes to know the love of the
Father. On our own journey we grow in faith. We may learn a lot about Jesus and
the Church’s teachings but at some point we have to make the profession with
our hearts not just our lips. In Luke’s gospel Jesus tells Peter, “I have prayed that your faith may not fail,
and once you have turned back, strengthen your brother.” (Luke 22:32) Jesus
prayed for Peter and he prays for us too. He prays that we, too, turn to him
for all that we need.
Our Church,
the Catholic Church, will endure because it was founded by Christ and the first
pope was chosen by Christ himself. It brings me great comfort to know that this
succession has never been broken. With the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI there
is a lot of speculation that someone new is going to come in and bring the
Church into the 21st century. But the Church was founded on Truth which
is unchangeable. The priesthood was instituted by Christ at the Last Supper and
the Apostolic Succession was instituted by Christ when he spoke those words to
Peter. “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;
whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” In this promise of Jesus to Peter, the infallibility
of the pope is preserved and papal infallibility is one of the channels of the infallibility
of the Church. And so the Holy Spirit will guide the cardinals when they gather
together to choose our next pope, our next Apostolic successor.
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