Christ giving the Keys of Heaven to St. Peter, Rubens 1612, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, Germany.

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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. Matthew 16:18-19.

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Today’s gospel packs a significant punch to all those listening in French or Greek or Italian, but not to us English speakers. Here is the key sentence in French:

Et moi, je te dis que tu es Pierre, et que sur cette pierre je bâtirai mon Eglise…

In those languages and in a few others, the name Peter is the same word for a stone or a rock, but not in English. It ultimately came from the Lord’s lips, when he renamed his disciple Simon Kefas, the masculine term for kefa, כֵּיפָא, Aramaic for a rock or stone. In the Greek, this is transliterated Cephas, and translated as Πέτρος, Petros, a rock, from which we get the name Peter. The only link in English is “petrification”, or becoming stone, or, worse, petrified, meaning the same thing, which doesn’t work at all! Jesus saw in Simon-Peter the potential for a great leader to stand in his shoes once the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension had taken place, notwithstanding Peter’s great betrayal of his master in the courtyard of the high priest in the early hours of the first Good Friday. And if we are ever convinced that we can never be forgiven for some transgression against God’s will, never forget that event. We believe in a God of Forgiveness. All we have to do is, in sincerity, ask for it and be given the strength to resist any further temptation. 

So today’s gospel is the most important scriptural basis for the claim that the Pope is the head of the church, Catholics believing that Peter was the first pope, the Vicar of Christ, that is, he stands in the Lord’s place, vicar meaning substitute or deputy. Not only that, but the coat-of-arms of the Vatican City State shows the keys of the kingdom of heaven, given to Peter by Jesus, with the papal crown of sovereignty:

The first reading plays into this idea of a suitable person to manage important duties for God. It is almost a preview for the occasion when Jesus placed his trust in Peter, (and confirmed this as shown in John’s gospel when he told Peter to “Feed my sheep…”). And the second reading seems to remind us of our place before the Lord, just in case we get a little too sure of ourselves. We are strongly reminded: …who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor? Or who has given the Lord anything that he may be repaid? Even Peter, or the Pope or any one of us needs to keep that in mind especially when faced with challenges which require a moral judgment and where the temptation is that we reject God’s will and substitute our own. In such moments we should face the Lord and ask him what we should do, knowing full well that we might not like the answer, exactly as the Lord himself experienced in Gethsemane. But that is the way each one of us is required to act as a child of God, be he or she high or low, as God sees each of us as equal. Because, in the end, each one of us has to act as God wants us to act, to speak as God wants us to, and to accept God’s will as the foundation of all we say and do. Not easy, but it prepares us for that judgment time before the Lord when each of us must answer for all such moments; did we do what God wanted us to do…..or not?

Peter Denies Jesus, Die Bibel in Bildern [Picture Bible] Gospel of Luke, von Carolsfeld 1860.

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