Homily For Thursday First Week of Lent Year B, 22nd February, 2024

The Feast of the Chair of St. Peter

Readings: 1Pete 5:1-4, Ps.23, Matt. 16:13-19

Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Emenike  Onyia

 

YOU ARE PETER, AND ON THIS ROCK I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH

 

Today in a special way the Church celebrates the Supreme Chair of Saint Peter. A feast that marks the establishment of an organized Christian community under the leadership of St. Peter and his successors (that’s the Popes throughout the ages). There is no doubt that the supreme authority belongs only to God, and he alone decides who to endow his authority and also delegates to exercise it among his people. Such is the occasion in our Gospel passage today where the gift of faith given to Peter by God was the rock on which Jesus built his Church and bestowed his authority on him.

 

In our Gospel, we heard how Jesus stresses that Peter's faith is a gift from the Father when he said: “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

 

Here the key represents the authority to open the gate of the Kingdom of Heaven, and to judge whether to admit or to refuse. While the expression “binding and loosing” refers to the doctrinal decisions and disciplinary power of the office of  St. Peter, that is, the faculty to impose and to lift, a guarantee that Peter’s decisions in the exercise of his ecclesial function are valid in the eyes of God because the faith given to Peter by God is the rock on which Jesus built his Church and that is why in the iconographic tradition we see the keys in the hand of Peter.

 

This gift of faith comes from a personal response of Peter, when he professed that Jesus is Christ the Son of the living God. Hence, our faith requires that we give a personal answer to the question: who is Jesus to me personally? It is not enough to quote the scriptures and the teachings of the Church about our faith or the teachings of other theologians and preachers. Or to respond not only from the head but from the heart that is convinced of what it believes in.

 

Dear friends, today’s feast reminds us of the need to truly profess our faith in God and be united as one family of God and by so doing overcome the ugly events of division, manipulation and multiplication of Churches going on in Christianity today. We are called to really examine our conscience to know where we are as regards our faith as Christians. Today we are called to be convinced of who we are and recognize the authority Christ has bestowed on his Church entrusted to St. Peter of which the get of underworld shall not prevail against it. To exercise this authority St. Peter in our first reading tells us to be the shepherds of the flock of God which has been entrusted to us: we should watch over it, not simply as a duty but gladly, because God wants it; not for sordid money, but because we are eager to do it.

 

LET US PRAY: Lord God, all authority belongs to you alone, as you have bestowed on your Church the authority and delegated her to exercise it among your people, may this gift unite us more closely to your Son Jesus, who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen. Do have a fruitful day.