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How ironic that a man named “Pope” would give such a homily. Haha. I just found it kind of funny.

It was remarkable actually. At my parish the priest didn’t talk about this obvious topic but rather on the faith of Saint Peter, and how we all need the same faith. He spoke of how this faith sustains us in times like today, mentioning IS beheadings and the Feurgeson flap.

It’s interesting don’t you think? First, I would have thought that the homily here would be the obvious go-to homily for this most critical passage of Catholic dogma. But as I do recall last time this came up in the cycle of readings, it wasn’t the homily then either. And this was another priest.

After reading this thread too, it’s struck me that perhaps a larger issue is missed in debating this again. Certainly it’s a controversey among Catholics and Protestants, but is that all the passage will be for either?

What is Jesus saying here to Peter that we can take away today? I return to the homily I heard on Sunday. The lesson I received is this: the church is built with humanity, with humans. Who are focused on Christ, not the world. A church in the world but not of the world.

This manifestly necessitates a visible presence, not because the church needs to be visible to be valid, but because it needs to be valid to be visible. That is, it’s validity makes it visible. It’s a concrete thing we can see in our lives. It’s a way we can, in our humanity, focus on Christ.

As humans we simply require something to be visible, something to be concrete, objective, a “fact” to assign any level of validity to it. We are very clever in our self-deception, we can convince ourselves of many things if we aren’t careful especially of spiritual matters. But let me conclude with one final thought.

What was St Peter’s mindset when he called Jesus the Christ? How did be come to that conclusion? Can we imagine ourselves as St Peter at that time (in history) how could we have said the same thing?

“By the Holy Spirit” he called Jesus the Christ. But what does that mean? Does that mean at that instant, for no reason whatsoever other than a random thought popping into his head, he shouted out “You are the Messiah”? Is that really our faith? Is that why you, the reader of this post now, call Jesus the Christ? Because of a random thought that popped into your head?

I submit that perhaps there is a reason to call Jesus the Christ beyond the simply mysterious. Maybe it’s “ok” to believe that I am the same kind of human being as St Peter. Maybe he had a reason, or reasons, unique to him but still facts he knew, about Jesus, after having met him and ate with him and walked dusty hot roads with him. Maybe his reason for calling Him the Christ was for those kinds of reasons. Reasons based in reality. Reasons based on the remarkable, astounding, provocative kind of human being that Jesus must have been on Earth.

Maybe that’s the lesson here. That to have the same faith as St Peter we need to experience Christ at such a level. Experience Him in reality. Have the same kind of experiences as St Peter did and the other apostles and deciples. Not the exact experiences obviously, but the same kind of experiences, that is, encountering a remarkable kind of humanity, that is obviously not of this world, but still in the world. In other words, something (or someone) visible.

Otherwise how can we say we have the same faith as the Apostles?

Approaching Christianity thusly, we then have a new way of reading and understanding this and other passages of Scripture, if not also a new way of approaching our faith in general. This awakens a need we all have, a need to see Him face to face, in reality, as a fact, that we all tend to compartmentalize and outright suppress for fear of it’s implication. Because it’s easier to “believe in” a Jesus who’s only in some pages of a book. In our minds as a nice idea. “Easier” in the sense that such a Jesus doesn’t make any demands upon us that are excessive. “I can’t be charitable today, I have a headache” or “I don’t want to pray today, I am too busy”. “He understands, after all he’s in heaven, he went through all of this so he understands. He doesn’t expect me to be really engaged in this world, it doesn’t really matter”. This is what we tell ourselves because we don’t expect to encounter him here, in this world. Because “it doesn’t really matter”.

Then when we call him the “Christ”, we aren’t doing it for any reason here, just because “the Holy Spirit leads me to say it”. Whatever that means. But surely it’s not just my own idea. I “know” it’s the Holy Spirit.

I’m not sure how anyone can make such a claim of knowledge without some fact in their life, without truly having a real “personal relationship with Jesus”. A relationship shared on a hot dusty road. Through turmoil and pain, in other words reality. In other words, with another person here. In other words someone or something visible.

Otherwise when we say he’s the “Christ” we never are quite sure it’s not just a nice idea on our part. A bit of easy escapism dressed up in 2,000 years of time. Otherwise, we are denying a part of our humanity. We become less human in such a fantasy. And that’s not being Christ-like: he was and is, fully human.

Finally, let’s return to the title of this post: “If no one is Pope, EVERYONE is pope!”

What is interesting is that according to Catholic Doctrine everyone is pope (at least according to Wikipedia):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_priesthood_(doctrine)

Thus, the Catholic Church accepts the ‘priesthood of all believers’ doctrine – it is not the exclusive domain of Protestantism.[7][8] This is exemplified in ‘chaplet of divine mercy’ prayer, in which the individual Christian declares: “Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, of your dearly beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins...” The primary difference between the teachings of the Catholic Church and those of the (non-Anglican) Protestant churches that reject the ordained priesthood is that the Catholic Church believes in three different types of priests:
1.first, the priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2:5–9);
2.second, the ordained priesthood (Acts 14:23, Romans 15:16, 1 Timothy 5:17, Titus 1:5, James 5:14-15); and
3.third, the high priesthood of Jesus (Hebrews 3:1).[9][10][11]