Where is Peter?

Homily

Tuesday of the 7th Week in Ordinary Time C2

22 February 2022

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Where is Peter?

What is the most important pivotal question of all time?  That would be a fun exercise.  We know the greatest commandments. What is the greatest question?  What is love?  What is truth?  There are plenty of good candidates.

Who is Jesus?  An argument can and has been made that the world turns most dramatically on this question alone.  It's the question of today's Gospel.  It's the question answered only by Peter.

In the tradition of the Church, to ask Who is Jesus is identical with the question where is Peter?  The truth of who Jesus is resides of course in the entire faith of His body, the Church.  Yet this truth is most particular, personified in the rock that is Peter, to whom is given the precise keys of authority by the Lord Himself.  

As this authority is meant to set persons like us free for relationships in truth, it is neither an accident nor a surprise that Jesus would entrust the answer of who He is to a single person.  

Despite every scandal and evil that has befallen the Church, the charism of Peter's confession remains unrivaled in history.  The answer to the greatest pivotal question of all time - who is Jesus? - an answer shared by all the faithful through their bishops, remains embodied and articulated by the pope.  Just as Jesus says it would.

That's why we pray for our Pope.  For we are part of this charism too, supporting his faith that cannot fail.

Thank God we know the answer to the question - where is Peter?

+mj