The feast of the Chair of Peter, on February 22, celebrates the papacy as the unshakable rock from which the Sovereign Pontiff addresses the whole world.
Newroom (22/02/2022 20:05, Gaudium Press) This is the promise of Our Lord Jesus Christ to Saint Peter:
“I say unto thee, Thou art Peter,
and upon this Rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall be able to do nothing against it.”
To destroy this stone, that is, the Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth, many efforts and endeavors of a considerable number of heretics have been employed. None have been able to shake the foundation which is the joy, consolation, and triumph of true Catholics.
In this “I will build” is found the real announcement of the Kingdom of Jesus. The great and divine plan begins to take shape in this name, never used until now: “my Church”. Here is a vital point of our Faith: “the fact that the Church is built upon Peter himself”. Incidentally this fact “is admitted by all the ancient authors, except the heretics”.
An indestructible work is born
It is amazing how this historical event unfolds in the “Caesarea Philippi region”: A simple fisherman from Bethsaida proclaims that the son of a carpenter is really the Son of God by nature. He then announces that he will build an indestructible work and leave it in the hands of its administrator, with full powers of jurisdiction and magisterium, “the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”
The environment that surrounds them is poor, arid, but with a certain grandeur. There, “the mustard seed” is planted, from which the churches, the cathedrals, the ceremonies, the stained glass windows, the universities, the hospitals, the martyrs, the confessors, the virgins, the doctors, the saints, in short, the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church, would be born.
Two millennia have passed and, after so many catastrophic storms, this “ship of Peter” remains steadfast, with Christ, with absolute power, at its center.
In fact, the head of this mystical body will always be Christ Jesus. During the history of humanity, He will be the invisible head, but He leaves an accessible Peter among us.
No other institution has resisted the corruption produced by moral deviations or the perversion of reason and human selfishness. Only the Church knew how to confront the chaotic theories, opposing them to the eternal truth; to cool selfishness, violence and voluptuousness, using the weapons of charity, justice, and sanctity; to pervade and reform the despotic and materialistic powers of this world, with the solemn and unarmed influence of a wise, serene and maternal authority.
No merely human hands could erect such a portentous work, only the virtue of God Himself would be able to confer sanctity and raise to eternal glory men conceived in sin.
Msgr. João Scognamiglio Clá Dias, EP
