Saint Peter is very encouraging.
Today he gets the answer exactly right.
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Our Lord blesses him.
Calls him Peter.
Gives him the keys of the Kingdom.
A few verses later Peter will tell Jesus that His plan of salvation is wrong.
Later he will fall asleep when asked to pray.
Then he will cut off somebody’s ear.
Then run away.
Then deny three times that he has ever met Jesus.
And this is the Rock.
Which should give the rest of us a certain amount of hope.
It also tells us something important.
Christ did not build His Church upon the assumption that Catholics would always be sensible.
If that were the plan, the Church would have collapsed before Pentecost.
He built her upon His own promise.
“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”
The first reading explains the image.
Eliakim is given the key of the house of David.
A key means authority. It means responsibility.
It means that something has been entrusted to you which does not belong to you absolutely.
Then Christ, the true Son of David, gives Peter the keys of His Kingdom.
Christ remains King.
Peter becomes steward.
He receives authority to bind and loose.
That is why Catholics take Peter seriously.
And why we take the papacy seriously.
The Pope is not there to invent Christianity.
Christianity has already been invented.
By Christ.
And that is where today’s Gospel collides rather violently with the modern world.
Modern culture says:
Begin with yourself. Discover your own truth. Define yourself.
Choose your own morality. Construct your own identity.
And if religion is useful, fit a little of it around the edges.
Christ says the opposite.
Begin with Me. Receive the truth. Repent. Be changed. Follow.
That is a much harder religion.
It is also the Catholic religion.
The modern question is: “What do I want Jesus to mean for me?”
The Gospel question is: “Who is Jesus actually?”
Peter answers: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
That is not a personal preference.
It is either true or false.
And if it is true, then Jesus does not fit into our lives.
Our lives must fit into Him.
That is the great dividing line.
Either Christ judges the world, or the world judges Christ.
Either revelation corrects us, or we correct revelation.
Either the Church teaches us, or we turn the Church into a mirror which politely reflects whatever we already think.
We cannot have both.
And this is where religion becomes wonderfully easy to parody.
We can construct a very comfortable Christianity.
Keep the kindness. Keep Heaven. Keep Christmas.
Keep angels. Keep the occasional candle.
Remove judgement. Remove sin. Remove Confession.
Remove anything difficult about marriage.
Remove anything which requires chastity.
Remove anything which suggests that God might disagree with me.
What remains may be pleasant.
It may even be spiritual.
But it is not Christianity and will lead us to destruction.
Because Christianity begins with the alarming possibility that God is right and I am wrong.
That is why conversion exists.
We do not come to Christ to have our opinions blessed.
We come to have our lives changed. The Church exists to help us do that.
And the keys matter because Christ did not leave every generation to invent its own version of the faith.
There is one Gospel. One Creed. One Baptism. One Eucharist.
One moral law. One Lord.
The Church has room for enormous variety.
Different cultures. Different devotions.
Different temperaments. Different customs.
But she cannot have contradictory truths.
Two plus two does not become five because five feels more inclusive.
And adultery does not become virtue because a century changes its mind.
Truth is not decided by applause.
That is deeply liberating because it means I do not have to create reality myself.
Imagine having to wake up every morning and decide what human nature is.
What marriage is. What sin is. Whether God exists.
Whether Christ rose from the dead.
Whether the Eucharist is really His Body and Blood.
You would be exhausted before breakfast.
Instead, Catholicism says: Receive.
God has spoken.
The Apostles have handed on.
The Church guards what she has received.
Then comes Christ’s promise: “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Notice what He does not promise.
He does not promise that every Catholic will be nice.
He does not promise that every priest will be inspiring.
He does not promise that every parish decision will be brilliant.
He does not promise that every hymn will improve with repetition.
He promises something infinitely greater.
Hell will not destroy His Church.
That means human weakness does not have the final word.
Peter can fail.
Christ remains faithful.
Fashions come and go.
Christ remains faithful.
And Saint Paul can only respond:
“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!”
In other words: God knows what He is doing.
Which is fortunate.
Because we frequently do not.
And what do Peter’s keys mean for us?
We do not possess them.
Peter receives a unique office.
But all of us live within the household of the King.
And all of us are entrusted with something.
Parents with children.
Priests with souls.
Godparents with promises.
Parishioners with a parish.
Each of us with time, opportunities, talents and faith.
So perhaps the question is not: “How can the Church adapt itself to me?”
Perhaps the better question is: “How must I be converted by Christ?”
Not: “Which teachings do I find acceptable?”
But: “What has Christ revealed?”
Not: “What sort of Catholicism suits me?”
But: “Am I willing to live the Catholic faith I should have received?”
Peter gives us the answer to everything.
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
If that is true, then Christ is not one voice among many.
He is Lord.
If He is Lord, then His Church is not ours to redesign.
If His Church is His, then the faith is not ours to rewrite.
And if the faith is true, then our task is not to make it easier.
Our task is to become faithful.
That is why the keys are such good news.
Christ has not abandoned His household.
He has not left us with a vague spirituality and wished us luck.
He has given us His Church. His Sacraments. His truth. His authority.
His promise.
And after two thousand years of emperors, persecutions, heresies, scandals, arguments, reforms, saints, sinners and parish meetings, the words still stand:
“The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
St. Mary's, St. John Bosco and St. Edward's 