Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Feast of the Chair of St. Peter
February 22, 2024
1 Pet 5:1-4, Ps 23, Mt 16:13-19
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following points were attempted in the homily:
- In today’s Gospel, we have a double confession. Inspired by God the Father, doubtless through the work of the Holy Spirit in him, Simon confesses Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God. Jesus in return gives another, almost equally striking confession: He says in return to Simon, You are kepha (the Aramaic means both the name “Peter” and the thing “Rock”), you are Rock and on this Rock, on you, I will build my Church and the gates of Hell won’t prevail against it. Jesus built his Church with an architectural plan and the foundation of the Church would be Peter and his relationship to Christ. That means that if we’re going to be truly a follower of Jesus Christ, if we’re going to be fully Christian, we need to build our faith in Christ on Peter because Christ built his Church, his Mystical Body and Bride, on him. At the beginning of Mass today, we prayed to God the Father, “Grant that no tempests may disturb us for you have set us fast on the rock of the Apostle Peter’s confession of faith.” God has made our faith steadfast on the Rock’s profession of faith, and therefore our growth in faith, our deepening in the Christian life, is directly linked to Peter, to the petrine office, and to the responsibilities Christ gave him, which he passed on to his successors.
- Today the Church celebrates the Feast of the “Chair” of St. Peter. Liturgically, it recalls the day St. Peter took up his episcopal ministry in Antioch, where he served before coming to Rome. He was “Pope” or the “father” or vicarious head of Christ’s Church from Jesus’ Ascension (May 19, 30 AD), but he didn’t immediately go to Rome. The early Christians not only celebrated Peter’s heroic martyrdom as a feast but also celebrated the day on which he started to guide the first Christians in the place Jesus’ believers were first called Christians.
- To celebrate the feast of St. Peter’s Chair, however, is something more specific than fêting Peter’s ministry. The chair was the ancient symbol of teaching authority: teachers would sit and all their students would stand, the exact opposite of what happens today. It’s equivalent to a judge’s bench or gavel today in the legal field. The evangelists tell us on several occasions that Jesus “sat down and began to teach” the crowds. The chair became a symbol of teaching authority and in some ways that remains today, when we refer to the person who has the “chair of philosophy” or “chair of theology” or even the “chair” of a particular meeting. To celebrate the feast of the Chair of St. Peter is to rejoice in the teaching authority Christ has given him for the sake of his body the Church. Jesus gave Peter the “keys of the kingdom of heaven,” to bind and loose on earth, and that even greater authority over the sacraments points to the authority he has to teach authoritatively in Jesus’ name. We retain the expression of the Pope’s teaching ex cathedra (literally “from the chair”) to highlight his most solemn teachings to us, applying Christ’s words and wisdom to the present age.
- I had the privilege to be ordained a deacon at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican just over 25 years ago. In the sculpture that hovers above the altar, Bernini enshrined the chair that in the 1600s everyone believed was the one used by St. Peter to teach the faith to the people of Rome. They were mistaken by a measly 800 years — history then wasn’t what it is now and archaeology basically didn’t exist! — and the enclosed chair was actually given to the Pope around the year 800 by the emperor Otto II. The reality, however, to which the altar of the chair points is Peter’s authority, and Bernini illustrated the theology of that authority in this incredible sculpture. On top of the bronze-enshrined chair was the image of the Holy Spirit, showing that the Holy Spirit continues to guide Peter and through him the Church to “all the truth,” as Jesus promised during the Last Supper. Underneath the chair, pointing to and spiritually upholding the legs of the chair, are four great theologians, bishops and fathers of the Church, Saints Ambrose, Augustine, Chrysostom and Athanasius, two from the west and two from the east. Their presence shows how bishops and theologians are supposed to support the teaching authority of the Popes. On the front of the seat-back is a bas relief of Peter’s feeding Christ’s sheep and lambs, the commission Christ gave Peter at the end of St. John’s Gospel after asking him three times if he loved him. Peter’s love for Christ would be shown in his feeding Christ’s flock, and the first way he feeds the flock is through his authoritative teaching in Christ’s name. Just as the evangelists tell us that Jesus had pity on the crowds and began to teach them many things, so Peter, sharing in Christ’s compassion, teaches.
- The teaching authority of the Pope has been so important throughout Church history. We see even in the Acts of the Apostles how there were disputes about whether Gentile converts needed to follow the whole Mosaic law and how Peter intervened in the Council of Jerusalem. Much later there were huge issues with whether Christ was fully God and fully man, whether he was two persons or one person and two natures, whether he had the full complement of a human body, soul and spirit, whether he had one will or two wills, whether the Holy Spirit was divine, what the sacraments were and whether they were necessary for salvation, which sacred writings were truly inspired and binding, and so many other concerns. It was the work of the Popes and the early ecumenical councils to guide the Church through this time of confusion and division. The Pope was the central reference point. We see that with Pope St. Clement, the fourth Pope, in the first century, as he resolved a dispute in Corinth. We see it famously in the fifth century, when Pope St. Leo the Great intervened with a “Tome” to guide the deliberations of the Council of Chalcedon in 451; after hearing it read, many said, in a phrase that has since become renowned, “Roma locuta est. Causa finita est.” “Rome [Peter] has spoken. The matter’s been put to rest.”
- That teaching authority is just as important today. In the last sixty years, there have been various debates about the dignity of every human life, about the morality of marital sexuality, about whether Christ is the Savior of the human race, about the impossibility of the ordination of women to the priesthood, about the formula of baptism, about whether it’s possible to commit a mortal sin and how sins must be forgiven, and so many other themes. And the Church, through the successor of St. Peter, has sounded a clear trumpet. When we don’t have that trumpet, not only does the Church suffer division, but people’s salvation is at risk. While this teaching authority remains so important today, there is nevertheless some confusion with regard to the teaching authority of the Petrine Office. Some people think that rather than building his Church on a rock, Jesus built it on a weather-vane, in which successive popes can change the teachings of their predecessors on issues of faith and morals. In places like Germany, where there has recently taken place a so-called “Synodal Way,” some think they no longer even need the pope and can change teaching in a binding way for a national Church. There had to be a Vatican intervention within the last week to deal anew with some of its theological errors. The importance of the Petrine teaching office is seen in the chaos that ensues whenever a pope does not teach clearly and unambiguously on anything, like has happened recently, for example, on the conditions for worthy reception of holy communion, on whether it’s possible and prudent to bless couples in immoral relationships, on the unity of the sacrament of Holy Orders, and a few other issues. On this Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, as the whole Church gives God thanks for the gift of papal teaching office throughout the centuries, we likewise pray for the Pope and his successors to exercise that ever-needed charism guided by the Holy Spirit well, in an age of great confusion about what it means to be a human being, not to mention what it means to be a good Catholic, and how to live in accordance with our awesome origin and destiny.
- I want to finish today by a reference to the second way Peter feeds Christ’s flock, which is by giving us Jesus’ body and blood. Peter is the one who gave the great confession of faith in Jesus’ Real Presence in the Eucharist. After Jesus told us that we needed to gnaw on his flesh and drink his blood to have life in us, after many of the disciples abandoned Jesus because they found that teaching too hard to endure, and after Jesus turned to the apostles and asked whether they, too, would abandon him, that’s when Peter stood up and said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Peter didn’t know better than the others how Jesus would give us his body and blood — he wouldn’t until exactly a year later when during the Last Supper he would totally change bread and wine into his body and blood and give himself to us to eat. Because he believed in Jesus, however, he believed in what he said. We hold fast to that confession of faith in Christ. At St. Peter’s Basilica this relationship between Peter and the Sacrament of the Eucharist is depicted artistically. The tabernacle in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel is a replica of a famous Church dedicated to St. Peter elsewhere in Rome, called San Pietro in Montorio. The Church at the time wanted to show the connection between Peter and the Eucharist and took a Church that symbolized Peter and placed Jesus within, to show that without holy orders, without the priesthood that finds its source of unity in Peter, there would be no Eucharist. So at the Mass, in which we have the double feast of the liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of the Eucharist, Peter’s authority is key for both. He nourishes us first with the Word of God and the applications of that Word to Christian life and then he nourishes us with the Word made Flesh. Peter was present at the first Mass and then celebrated the Eucharist for the early Christians with the table of the Word and the table of the Eucharist.
- Today we thank the Lord for the gift of his work, his Church founded on Peter, his teaching through the Pope, his giving of the Sacraments, and we ask for the grace to hold fast to his continual confession. And we pray in a special way for the 266th Peter, Pope Francis, that his faith may never fail, that he may strengthen us his brothers and sisters with Jesus’ teaching, and help us all to confess Jesus in the world to be the Messiah and Son of God.
The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 1 PT 5:1-4
Beloved:
I exhort the presbyters among you,
as a fellow presbyter and witness to the sufferings of Christ
and one who has a share in the glory to be revealed.
Tend the flock of God in your midst,
overseeing not by constraint but willingly,
as God would have it, not for shameful profit but eagerly.
Do not lord it over those assigned to you,
but be examples to the flock.
And when the chief Shepherd is revealed,
you will receive the unfading crown of glory.
Responsorial Psalm PS 23:1-3A, 4, 5, 6
R. (1) The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
In verdant pastures he gives me repose;
Beside restful waters he leads me;
he refreshes my soul.
R. The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.
Even though I walk in the dark valley
I fear no evil; for you are at my side
With your rod and your staff
that give me courage.
R. The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.
You spread the table before me
in the sight of my foes;
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
R. The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.
Only goodness and kindness follow me
all the days of my life;
And I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
for years to come.
R. The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.
Alleluia MT 16:18
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church;
the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel MT 16:13-19
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.”
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