Trust in Peter

The Fountain of Grace. The water that flows from God the Father and Jesus Christ represents grace. It is accessed by the group on the left who follow the Pope. Those on the right, instead, follow someone else, a blind man, and never find the fountain. 

In the first reading this Sunday we hear from a rather obscure event in the life of King Hezekiah. After the death of his father King Ahaz, Hezekiah initiated an impressive reform. He destroyed all the places of worship to idols, stops all sacrifices to Baal (to whom even children were sacrificed), cleaned up the temple, reinstituted the priesthood and the feast of Passover… But to carry out all these reforms he needed someone trustworthy to look after the palace affairs.  So, he removes Shebna from office after learning that he had used his position to enrich himself and gives Eliakim the keys of the palace. That way Eliakim is entrusted with many of the affairs of the kingdom but more importantly with everything the king owns, things as delicate as the safety of the king’s family and he is given access to know the most intimate parts of the life of the king.

In the Gospel we hear Jesus entrusting the keys of his Kingdom to Peter after his profession of faith. A passage we are all very familiar with but also one that has been misinterpreted many times. Because as it happens in the first reading, possessing the keys of the Kingdom is not about power, but about service and about giving to Peter and his successors access to the wealth of the Kingdom of Heaven and the most intimate and inaccessible mysteries.

And why would Jesus entrust the keys of the Kingdom to Peter? Well… the answer is that Jesus had envisioned his Church to be an instrument of evangelization. But if the Church is designed to evangelise, someone has to have access to the Heavenly Kingdom, to the mysteries of God, to the truth, and the person Jesus chose was Peter. So, we do well to adhere to him and his successors (the Pope). They are the guarantee that we will continue to have access to the fountain of life and grace. 

Fr Daniel Herrero Pena