Feast of the Chair of Peter

Today is the Feast Day of the Chair of Peter, the celebration of Jesus’ teaching and ministerial authority as given to His first Pope.

Jesus did not leave us orphans. He gave us the Holy Spirit and a chain of command in earthly leadership. Jesus gives authority to his disciples and authority to Apostles, but in Matthew 16, He gives special authority to Peter that He gives to no one else. He gave the keys to Peter, made him the rock and said the gates of Hell would not prevail against the church he oversaw. Two-thousand years later, it’s still here. A later pope quipped that no enemy could destroy the Church because even the Catholics couldn’t destroy it.

On this day, I give thanks for the Church. I consider myself as belonging to Jesus as a Catholic before I consider my race, ethnicity or any other modifier. I am the daughter of God in the Church and it has given me both nourishment and solace. It’s the same Jesus and the Mass everywhere in the world, no matter where I have gone.

I give thanks for Pope Francis, a joyful, Holy man who desires the peoples’ encounter with Jesus. This religion is about a Person, not mere philosophy or rules or charity work. There are philosophies and there are rules and there is charity work, but those are the outgrowth of the encounter with the Person of Jesus. I join in his prayer that more people meet Him.

God bless the Pope! God bless the Church! God bless the Chair of Peter!