Having focused our attention on Blessed Peter’s proclamation
that Jesus is the King, the New Solomon, and having dismissed the Protestant
attack that Peter is simply an insignificant stone, and not the foundation of
the Church, we now have the tools to consider the rest of the passage in its
proper context. “Thou art Christ, . . .
thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it. And I will give to thee the keys to the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon the
earth, it shall be bound also in heaven” (Matt 16:16-19).
Peter’s proclamation that Jesus is the Christ evokes Our
Lord’s response that Peter is the Rock upon which Jesus, the New Solomon, will
build the house of God, the Church. “The rock” in ancient Israel was the “rock of Moriah” upon which
Solomon built the house of God (the Temple)
and upon which the Dome of the Rock, an Islamic shrine, stands today. Among the Jews, there was a tradition that
named this rock as the capstone of the gates of hell, and as long as this rock
was in place, hell could not prevail on earth.
Having declared that Peter is the new rock, our Lord concludes his
proclamation with the words, “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it,” confirming our understanding that Peter is indeed the foundation-stone of
the Church.
Following this proclamation, our Lord grants to Peter “the
keys to the kingdom of heaven.” As with
every royal house, certain customs and offices are attached to the ruling
king. In ancient Israel, the
King’s “right-hand man,” similar to our Vice-President, was given the Hebrew
title, al-bayit. It was this man’s job to be the keeper of the
kingdom, and to run the royal house while the King was engrossed in other
affairs. In this office, the person was
said to be “over the house” of the King (cf. Num 12:7; 1 Kgs 18:3; 2 Kgs
15:5). A similar position was found in
the ancient Egyptian court and was held by Joseph (son of Jacob) when he
assisted Pharaoh during the great famine that brought Israel’s family to Egypt (cf. Gen. 41:37-45). To Joseph, ‘al-bayit of the royal house of Egypt,’ Pharaoh proclaimed, “You
shall be over my house, and all my people shall order themselves as you
command; only as regards the throne will I be greater than you.” In order to show the authority which this man
held within the kingdom, the King of Israel gave to his “al-bayit” the “keys to the kingdom” which were symbolically placed
upon his shoulder as a sign of his authority.
As we read in the book of Isaiah regarding the al-bayit of the royal house of Israel,
“who is over the household . . . He
shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem
and to the house of Judah. And I
will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and
none shall shut; and he shall shut and none shall open. And I will fasten him like a peg in a sure
place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father’s house. And they will hang on him the whole weight of
his father’s house” (Isaiah 22:15, 21-24).
It is in view of this royal office that we hear Our Lord, the newly proclaimed
King of Israel, declare that Peter will be his al-bayit, protecting the house of God from all danger. Upon Peter’s shoulder then, the New Solomon
places the keys to the kingdom, and declares that whatever Peter “binds on
earth shall be bound in heaven” (Matt 16:19), whatever “he shall open…none
shall shut” (Is 22:22).
What is the most important thing to remember about this
passage in the Gospel of Matthew? As
with our past topics, the Catholic and Biblical theology of participation in divine
life is essential. Let us always
remember that the Word was made flesh in order to give us the greatest thing
anyone can ever give to another: his own life.
Each one of us who has been baptized into Christ has been given this
gift of participation in Christ. As Saint Paul explains, ‘One
is an eye, one is a foot, another is a hand’ all members of the One Body of
Christ (cf. 1 Cor 12:12-31). It is
participation in this divine life that makes a priest able to hear confessions,
holy men able to perform miracles, and Blessed Peter to be the foundation stone
of the Church.
There is one Wise Builder, and one Rock upon which he builds
his house. There is one Church built by
Jesus Christ, and one man upon whom He has placed the keys of the kingdom. If a man builds upon any other foundation, he
is like the “foolish man who built his house upon the sand; and the rain fell,
and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it
fell; and great was the fall of it” (Matt 7:26-27).
Today there are over 30,000 Protestant denominations; there
is only one Church built by Jesus Christ.
Viva il Papa! Viva il Papa! Viva il Papa!
