Peter Vicar Of Christ

EWTN Global Catholic Radio and St. Joseph Communications proudly present Life is Worth Living with Archbishop Fulton Sheen. This 50-part series was recorded on phonograph records in the 1960s, and the sound quality is sometimes limited, but the word of God spoken by Archbishop Sheen is timeless. And now, here is Archbishop Fulton Sheen. Peace be to you. Thus far in these lessons, we have stressed the idea that the Church is the mystical body of Christ, that it is visible inasmuch as it has members that walk this earth. It is invisible inasmuch as Christ is the invisible head, and the life of it is the Holy Spirit. We also said that this Church is a society, an assembly, a cahal, related in some way to the assembly and cahal of the Old Testament, and through this Church, God is diffusing the merits of Calvary. Now we come to a point where we wish to show that Peter holds the primacy, primacy not only of honor, but also of jurisdiction over the Church. In other words, he is the vicar of Christ, he is the first pontiff, he is the first pope. It is very strange that those who admit it with Scripture, that the Church is the mystical body of Christ, will not also admit a head. After all, how are we to know, for example, that the body exists in this earth? It is very easy to know that Christ was walking this earth simply because men saw him. Well after his ascension, how would men know his mystical body and where his life was to be found? Our blessed Lord did not leave these questions unanswered, and so he gave a sign that we would know his body, and the sign was the sign of all living things. How does any life manifest itself? Does not the unity of life manifest itself through the head, which is the source of the movements of the body? The head is a symbol, is it not, of the unity of life. Legs and arms can be amputated without destroying the unity of life, but cut off the head, and it is the end of life. In the social order, does not every club or group or society or nation have a head, or a president or a king? And even in the psychological order, it is natural almost that there be a kind of a consciousness of headship. In an infant, for example, there is a great complexity and crisscrossing of activities, vegetative, emotional, and mechanical, and vital, and so forth, but as the child develops, gradually it reaches a point where it sums up all of its organic activities in the personal pronoun, I. It comes to a consciousness of its unity, and a center of reference, namely the primacy of personality. Now, if our blessed Lord established a life here on earth, even though he didn't name a head, it would eventually, in the psychological order, have to become conscious of its head. But our blessed Lord, as we know, and as we are going to show, did name a head. Now, this happened, as we saw in the last lesson, at Caesarea Philippi. It was a half-pagan city, and in that city, our blessed Lord considered the three possible forms of church government. How would his mystical body be governed? There might be three ways. One, the democratic, two, the aristocratic, and three, the theocratic. The democratic would be one in which a majority vote decides, in which everyone has an entirely different opinion of what is to be, to be the truth and to be the law. The aristocratic is an appeal, not so much to the majority or to the masses, but rather an appeal to an aristoi, an aristocracy, a house of parliament, a senate, a congress, a house of lords, whatever it be. And the theocratic is one in which God chooses one man, as he chose Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses, and guides and protects and directs this man. Our blessed Lord did not establish his church without considering all of these possible forms of government. So he began with the democratic, and his question was, who do men say the Son of Man is? In other words, if you took a poll, if you took a vote, what is the general opinion concerning me? What answer did our Lord get? The answer was, some say you're John the Baptist, and others Elias, and others Jeremiah, and others one of the prophets. No unity, no fertitude, leave the government of the church to individual interpretation and you get contrary and contradictory views. Eternal truth who said that not a single iota of his teaching should be changed could ever accept a government of that kind in which men could not agree, and so he had for it nothing but the withering scorn of his silence. He appeals to the aristocratic, whom do you say that I am? You, my twelve apostles, you my aristocracy, you my chosen group, who am I? There was no answer. First of all, there had been no head appointed as their spokesman, furthermore, some of them had doubts. Thomas certainly had doubts, Judas was not very certain of his financial sagacity, Philip was troubled about relations to the Heavenly Father, but our blessed Lord could not build his church upon an aristocracy alone. At this point, there is one man without the consent of the others who steps forward and he speaks in the name of all, and he gives the right answer. His answer is, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. There is one man with divine illumination, as we shall see, who speaks in the name of all, who makes the confession of the divinity of Christ, who affirms faith in him, who is to be chosen as the head of his mystical body. This is the theocratic form of church government. Before we go into the text, what objections could there be? Well one objection that is urged against this particular text is that our blessed Lord did not build his church on Peter, he built it upon Peter's confession of faith in his divinity. Now this is not true because our blessed Lord was addressing Peter in a second person singular, as we shall see, our Lord said to Peter, Blessed art thou, I will give to thee whatsoever thou shalt bind. Here there is no confession of faith, our blessed Lord is speaking in the second person singular to a man whose name he changed from Simon the Rock. Going back now to our text, let us go through briefly some of the words. Our blessed Lord said to Simon Peter, Blessed art thou. We have heard those words before. They were once spoken by an archangel at the annunciation to Mary. When the archangel approached Mary to ask her if she would give God a human nature with which he could redeem the world, the angel saluted her, Blessed art thou. Why blessed? Because she was to be given the divine privilege of motherhood of Christ. Now likened to the annunciation, our blessed Lord says to Simon Peter, Blessed art thou. As Mary was blessed because she was to be the mother of Christ, the head of the mystical body, so Peter is blessed because he is to be the vicar of Christ and the visible head of the mystical body. Next our blessed Lord said to Simon Bar-yonah, Blessed art thou, Simon son of John. Our Lord is still calling him by his personal name, that is to say his family name. Our Lord had already given him another name, the name of Kaphos in Aramaic, which means rock, and the name of Peter in English. Then our blessed Lord continues. Apropos the confession of divinity, our blessed Lord said to Peter, Flesh and blood hath not revealed this to thee. In other words, you do not know that I am Christ the Son of God by natural instinct or by reason, just as you who are listening to me do not know just by reason alone that Christ is the Son of God. Your reason gives you motives of credibility, but there had to be an illumination from above. There is a very special illumination of Peter because he recognizes now that Christ is not only the Messiah, but he is also the Son of the Eternal Father. Remember that all of the apostles were there at Caesarea Philippi, and yet our blessed Lord speaks only to one. Our Lord continues, And in my turn I say to thee, through Peter, Note, this is going to be personal, Thou art the rock. Notice the parallel between Peter's confession and our blessed Lord's transfer of power. Peter said, Thou art the Christ. Our Lord answers, Thou art the rock. Peter confessed the grandeur of Christ, and Christ confesses the grandeur of Peter. Remember now that Peter's name is Rock. It was a new name, it was suited to his office. Now this word, Rock, does not appear here for the first time in Scripture. Throughout the Old Testament, God is called Rock, as we are going to see later on, that God is also called Key-bearer, God is also called Shepherd. Our blessed Lord, inasmuch as he is the Son of God, is the Rock of the Ages, yet he makes Peter a rock. Look through the Old Testament and you will find instances of how God is called the Rock. Remember that in the book of Exodus and in the book of Numbers there was a rock that gave forth water, and St. Paul later on, referring to that, says, And the rock that followed them was Christ. In other words, that rock that Moses struck was a prefigurement of Christ, who is the eternal rock. There are 40 references in the Old Testament where God is called a rock. In the book of Daniel, the Messiah is called a rock that smashes to dust the statue with the feet of clay. And our blessed Lord himself said that those who obeyed his commandments would be likened to a house that was built upon a rock. The implication was that here Christ, the Son of God, who in the Old Testament, in the book of Isaiah, is called the Rock of Israel, that this Christ, as the Son of God, sustained the Old Cahal, so Peter is to sustain the New Cahal, the New Ecclesia, or the New Church as a rock. In other words, there was a communication of the divine power of being a rock from God to Peter. And when our blessed Lord told Peter that he was to be the rock, that did not mean that God had his rights violated, or that he had abdicated them. He is the rock, but he is the invisible rock, and Peter is to be made the visible rock of the mystical body. If a technical reference may be permitted, in the Greek of Matthew, where we have the words, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, the word for Peter is Petros, and the word for rock is Petra. Now, in classical literature, for example in Homer, you find that the word Petros means a kind of a small rock that is part of a great and tremendous rock, like Gibraltar. So our blessed Lord is really saying to Peter, Thou art the true Petros of me, the divine Petra. And both are persons. If the rock was a person, Peter the rock was a person. So that as a visible body, the church had Peter as its visible rock foundation. As an invisible spiritual reality, the mystical body has Christ in heaven as its spiritual eternal rock. Next our blessed Lord said, I will build my church, my Ecclesia, my Kahal. Our Lord did not say, I will build my churches. The church is his body. Christ cannot have many bodies. That would be a physical monstrosity. So that the whole organic foundation of the mystical body is founded on a single man who is to have divine assistance. Notice our Lord also said, I will build my church. The same word build is used in the book of Genesis. In the Latin translation of the scriptures in the Vulgate, it is exactly the same word that is used to describe how Eve was formed out of Adam, and how Christ built his church. Adam was like an unfinished thing until Eve was formed. Also scripture says that Christ was to have his fullness in his bride, the church. As Eve was built from Adam, so the church was built from Christ. Next our blessed Lord says, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, against the church. Now here our Lord is not so much referring to literal gates, but rather to an unseen world. The word prevail, that is to say evil shall not prevail, means to overpower. Our blessed Lord therefore assures Peter that his church will be indestructible, indefectible, because the gates symbolize power. It was the place generally where counselors and men of power and government met. For example the book of Genesis says that Lot sat at the gate of Sodom. The book of Ruth says that Boaz took care of legal matters at the gate of Bethlehem. So too, hell has its gates, its seat, its counsel, its treasury of power. Now this will always be opposed to the church, but our blessed Lord says the gates of hell shall not prevail, in other words the church will be indefectible through the ages. Notice too, that this privilege is not given to the person of Simon, but is given to Peter. So our blessed Lord said that he will be with his church even under the consummation of the world. Then our Lord added, I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Imagine, not only is he the foundation stone, but once he is on the inside of this church he is going to have keys. Our blessed Lord said, I am the door. In the book of the Apocalypse, the glorified Christ is described as bearing keys. The book of the Apocalypse states, so that none may shut what he opens, and none may open when he shuts. But just as the eternal lock made visible as a good shepherd is going to make Peter the shepherd, so the key-bearer, the eternal key-bearer, gives him the keys. In other words, he truly is the vicar of Christ. He gives to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and then whatsoever thou shalt bind on her is bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on her is loosed in heaven. This means that whatever Peter commands or forbids, he does it in the name of Christ. This is a tremendous power. Earth and heaven become a single force, while the heavens almost seem to be an echo of earth, as if God were lending his ears in order to hear what his vicar Peter was saying. This power is legislative, because he can bind and loose. It is a power of discipline. It is a power that will protect him from error, and there is no limit to it, for our blessed Lord said, whatsoever he binds, Christ binds. Here our blessed Lord promised to confer this power upon Peter, but there were other instances too in Scripture where our Lord associated Peter with himself. One particularly interesting moment is the night of the Last Supper. All the apostles were gathered together with our blessed Lord, and our Lord speaks to Peter and says, Behold, Satan has claimed power over all of you, so that he may sift you as wheat. Now notice the plural there. Our Lord is saying, Power over all of you. The words of our Lord continue, But I prayed for thee, that thy faith may not fail. Then after a while thou hast come back to me. It is for thee to be the support of thy brethren. Notice our blessed Lord says, Satan wants all of them. Now out of all, for whom does our Lord pray? Here he is not praying for the twelve, he is praying for Peter alone. He addresses him in the second person singular, and he does that because if the foundation stone crumbled, the rest of the edifice would fail. Our blessed Lord is also telling Peter that he is going to fail, and he will a few hours later, when he will tell the maidservant, I know not the man, but our Lord says that he will come back. He will come back at Pentecost, and then he will be the support of the twelve. In other words, it is in Peter, the vicar of Christ, that the apostles or the bishops have their support and come within the hearing of the prayer of Christ. Isolated and separated from Peter as the vicar of Christ, the apostles are weak, and we are not to assume that this power was given only to Peter, because he was not called Simon then. Simon indeed dies, but Peter lives on, Pius and Leo and Benedict and others die, but Peter continues under the confirmation of the world. Another instance of how our Lord associated Peter to himself was at the payment of the temple tax. This is the only time in scripture where God ever associates the human being with himself under the personal pronoun, we. Just think how proud you were when, as a child, perhaps your father put his arms around you and said, We will do this. At the time of the payment of the temple tax, our blessed Lord told Peter to pay it, and he said to pay it for me and for thee. And then he adds that we may not scandalize. Here he is making himself one with Peter. He's associated with the master in a way that no one else can ever be associated. We, Christ and Peter. It is why all papal encyclicals begin with the word we. This particular unity that existed between Petros and Petra, the invisible rock and the visible rock, is now carried on at the close of our Lord's public life, rather after the resurrection. Our Lord is fishing three times. He says to Peter when he comes to the shore, Lovest thou me? And after Peter affirms his love, because there can be no conferring of authority without love. Our blessed Lord each time says to him, Feed my lambs, tend my shearlings, feed my sheep. Here the power is conferred by the good shepherd to Peter the shepherd. The flock is one because the shepherd is one, and one man is at the head of the flock. In other words, the church is to be made up of bishops and priests and people, as on earth our blessed Lord associated with himself apostles, disciples and people. And Peter is to be the head of them all. And the words that our blessed Lord used in Greek were boskine, poimenine. In other words, you have the order, you have the jurisdiction, you have the authority. In order to feed my lambs, to feed my sheep, I am transferring my power as shepherd to you. And our Lord told Peter how he would die, that he would be crucified. When Peter went to Rome where he was crucified, he said that he was not worthy to be crucified in the manner that our blessed Lord was, so he asked that he be crucified upside down. How fitting that was, for the eternal rock had told him that he was to be the rock. And after all, where is the foundation rock to be placed if not close to the ground? And so the rock was laid, and that rock became the foundation stone of the church. And from that day to this, the church has a shepherd, a rock, a key bearer, a vicar of Christ, the one head for the one body. That is how we know where the church is. As they said in the first centuries, ubi patris, ibi aplasia, wherever Peter is, there is the church. God bless you. This has been Life is Worth Living with Archbishop Fulton Sheen. For more information about this series, contact St. Joseph Communications at 1-800-526-2151. Outside the U.S., call 818-331-3549, and please join us again next time for Life is Worth Living with Archbishop Fulton Sheen on EWTN Global Catholic Radio.