Our Catholic Faith, as Firm as Rock

Saint Peter's Chair

Matthew 16:13-19

This feast brings to mid the mission of teacher and pastor conferred by Christ on Peter, and continued in an unbroken line down to the present Pope. We celebrate the unity of the Church, founded upon the Apostle, and renew our assent to the Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, extended both to truths which are solemnly defined ex cathedra, and to all the acts of the ordinary Magisterium.

The feast of the Chair of Saint Peter at Rome has been celebrated from the early days of the Christian era on 18 January, in commemoration of the day when Saint Peter held his first service in Rome. The feast of the Chair of Saint Peter at Antioch, commemorating his foundation of the See of Antioch, has also been long celebrated at Rome, on 22 February. At each place a chair (cathedra) was venerated which the Apostle had used while presiding at Mass. One of the chairs is referred to about 600 by an Abbot Johannes who had been commissioned by Pope Gregory the Great to collect in oil from the lamps which burned at the graves of the Roman martyrs. — New Catholic Dictionary

The authority entrusted by Jesus to Peter is precisely the one that the Church lives out in the ministry of salvation - a Rock in which Jesus would build his Church, entrusted with the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven with the authority to lose and to bind.

It is a ministry of unquestionable unity with the Lord and from it, all authority springs forth.

Interiorly, we as Christians would also learn from the spirituality of St. Peter as he handled this awesome responsibility through the following:

1. total faithfulness to the Lord, leading to be witness of the sufferings of Christ
2. to be sharer in the glory that is to be revealed
3. to continue shepherding God's flock

In order to mirror authentic Christianity, may we live out these values with total dedication and love in our hearts.