We live in an age in which everyone wants the keys.
The keys to define truth.
The keys to decide morality.
The keys to remake ourselves.
Even, sometimes, the keys to remake the Church.
We have become rather fond of the idea that nothing is really given to us. Everything must be chosen, edited, improved, personalised.
And then Our Lord says something definite:
“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”
Not to everyone. To Peter.
That immediately tells us something which our age finds difficult.
The Kingdom already has a King.
The Church already has a shape.
The truth has already been revealed.
We arrive rather late in the story.
The first reading explains the image.
Eliakim is given the key of the house of David. He does not become king. He becomes steward of the king’s household.
The key means authority, but borrowed authority.
He may open and shut, but in the name of another.
Then Christ, the true Son of David, turns to Peter:
“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”
The connection is deliberate. Peter receives a particular office in Christ’s Church, with authority to bind and loose.
And notice the order.
Before Peter receives the keys, Jesus asks: “Who do you say that I am?”
Peter answers: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Everything depends upon that.
If Jesus is just an interesting religious teacher, then naturally we may edit Him.
Keep the compassion.
Discard the difficult commandments.
Admire the Beatitudes.
Quietly forget judgement, repentance, his teaching on marriage, the Cross.
But if Jesus is the Son of the living God, we cannot put Him under review.
He puts us under review.
We do not decide whether His teaching is acceptable.
His teaching decides whether our lives are faithful.
That is where the keys become very relevant.
We tend to think freedom means possessing the keys ourselves.
No one tells me what to believe.
No one tells me what to do.
No one defines anything for me.
But imagine being invited into a magnificent old house and immediately announcing that you intend to move every wall because you dislike the floor plan.
That is not freedom.
That is vandalism.
The Catholic begins somewhere else.
This is the house of God. I did not build it.
I have been invited into it. And, amazingly, I have been given a place within it.
That is why the keys should give us joy rather than anxiety.
Christ has not left us wandering around trying to reconstruct Christianity from fragments.
He founded a Church.
He gave her authority.
He entrusted the faith to her.
Peter’s office continues in his successors.
Not because every Pope is brilliant.
Peter himself rather destroys that theory.
Within a few verses he will misunderstand Christ badly.
Later he will deny Him three times.
Peter is not the Rock because he is impressive.
Peter is the Rock because Christ says so.
That should be tremendously reassuring.
The Church does not finally depend upon our ingenuity.
She depends upon Christ’s fidelity.
But what about us?
We do not possess Peter’s keys.
But all of us are given responsibilities inside the household.
And perhaps that is where today’s Gospel comes very close to home.
A parent is given a child.
A priest is given souls.
A godparent is given a promise.
A parish is given people, buildings, memories, opportunities, and a mission.
Those are not the keys of Peter.
But they are real trusts.
And every trust raises a question:
What will I do with what God has placed in my hands?
That seems particularly fitting in a parish dedicated to Saint Edward the Confessor.
Edward was a king.
He knew about crowns and authority.
Yet the Church remembers him not because he possessed power, but because he understood that power itself stands beneath God.
Christian authority is never simply possession.
It is stewardship.
The same is true of a parish.
St Edward’s does not belong to any one generation.
Others prayed here before us.
They brought children to the font.
Knelt before the Blessed Sacrament.
Came burdened to Confession.
Celebrated marriages.
Prayed beside coffins.
Received Christ at this altar.
And now, for a little while, this place is ours to serve.
That is a beautiful thought.
We do not need to spend our time looking backwards anxiously or forwards fearfully.
We have been given the present.
And the present is enough for grace.
We can make this parish more prayerful.
More confident.
More joyful.
More recognisably Catholic.
We can teach children the faith clearly.
We can help people return to Confession.
We can make the Eucharist visibly central.
We can welcome newcomers without watering anything down.
We can help people discover that Catholicism is not a collection of burdens but an immense inheritance.
Truth. Grace. Sacraments. Saints. Forgiveness. The promise of Heaven.
Saint Paul can only respond:
“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!”
That is the proper Catholic attitude.
Not pride.
Wonder.
We have received riches we did not earn.
And therefore we should hand them on generously.
Perhaps that is what the keys mean for us today.
Peter has the keys of the Kingdom.
We have the privilege of living inside the Kingdom.
And each of us has been entrusted with some small part of the household.
A family.
A vocation.
A parish.
A soul.
A duty.
A faith.
The great question is not whether we control it.
We do not.
The question is whether we will be faithful with it.
Christ is the King.
The house is His.
The keys are His to give.
And what a joy if,
when our little period of stewardship is finished,
those who come after us find the faith still burning brightly,
the Sacraments loved, Christ adored, and the household of God very much alive.
St. Mary's, St. John Bosco and St. Edward's 