Upon This Rock

When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi
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." 

For the Church, Christ made no more important pronouncement than the one that He makes here.  On this day the Church celebrates the Chair of St. Peter.  Are we celebrating the purchase of some new furniture?  Of course not!  Today we are celebrating the establishment of Peter as the first leader of the Church that Jesus founded on earth.  But, we actually celebrate much more than that.

First of all, Jesus came to establish not a republic on earth but a kingdom. By definition, a kingdom must have a king.  Jesus, as the Son of God, fills this unique role as no one other could, so He is the king.  Now, a king needs help administering his kingdom so he appoints ministers. The twelve apostles fit this role perfectly so each of them is a minister.  The king also may be absent for a while in which case there needs to be someone in charge of the kingdom, a sort of super-minister or as we would call him a prime minister. The prime minister has the power and authority to undo the decisions of the other ministers and to act for the king in the king’s absence. The other ministers cannot question or undo that which the prime minister has done. This means that the interests of the absent king are being looked after by one of his loyal servants.   As a sign of his authority, the prime minister is given the keys to the kingdom.  He can unlock every door, or lock them and none but the king himself can overrule him.  So, Peter has been appointed by Jesus to be the head of the Church on earth.  We can see that all of the other apostles understood the role of Peter because as problems arose, discussions took place but when Peter spoke the discussions ended and what Peter said was carried into action. 

Jesus appoints Peter and says that upon this Rock, that is Peter, He will build His Church.  There are two things worthy of note in this statement. First, Peter is called rock, which is a solid foundation.  Second, Christ calls it His Church, so while Peter will be the prime minister, Christ Himself will be the founder and the owner of it.  Jesus then gives the guarantee by which the Church is protected from spreading heresy when He stated that the gates of hell will not prevail against her. He then gives the keys to the kingdom not to all twelve apostles, but to Peter.  I wonder what Peter made of all of this.  His life once he met and started to follow Jesus had changed radically.  At one point he was a simple fisherman with a home, a wife, nets, and all that he needed to catch fish.  Then this Jesus comes around and his life is turned around and it takes turns that he had never expected.

Oh, there was to be a learning curve for the newly appointed chief of the apostles as there would be for all of the men Jesus chose. Here, therefore is the beginning of the Church that we know today.  The Catholic Church is the only Church founded by Jesus. It is the only Church that has the whole truth and the only one that teaches with the authority of Jesus.  It is the only Church that can trace its origin to the time of  Jesus and the apostles. While other denominations have some of the truth, only the Catholic Church has been entrusted with the keys to the kingdom and has the entire truth of the Gospel.

Purgatory is a real place and new souls arrive there every second of every day. Blessed are those that have friends and relatives that pray and offer sacrifices for them so that their time in this place is shortened.  Millions of souls have no one to pray for them either because they are thought to already be in heaven or during their lives Protestantism was their religion and Purgatory was thought as a Catholic invention.  Catholic man, Catholic Woman, please pray for the Poor Souls in Purgatory.  Pray for your friends and relatives so as not to let love stop at the graveside and pray for the millions of souls of the Protestant tradition that have no one to pray for them.