Today’s feast has been celebrated in the Church almost from the very beginning. It goes back to the fourth century, when the Church had just emerged from the catacombs. The feast honors, of course, not the papal throne, the chair itself, but the chair as symbol of the authority bestowed by Christ on Peter and his successors in the papacy. It recalls not only papal authority, but also the responsibility that is placed on the shoulders of the man who is chosen as Pope and Bishop of Rome.

Authority, of course, is a gift given to the Church in order to help her guide her children through this world to the kingdom of heaven. The Gospel reading recalls Jesus choosing Peter to be the Rock on which the Church would be solidly founded and giving him the keys, symbolic of the power of binding and loosening in matters of faith.

Peter embraced this position of authority in the spirit intended by Jesus. Throughout the Gospel Jesus indicates time and again that in his mind the exercise of authority is to be manifested in service. That Peter was one with Christ in this understanding of authority, he makes clear in the brief selection from his first letter that is the first reading at this Mass.

We should pray for all who exercise leadership in the Church, that they take to heart Peter’s advice. We should pray that we will gratefully accept the teaching of the shepherds under whose care Christ has placed us.