WE WILL PRAY FOR YOU, POPE BENEDICT!


(Homily delivered by Bishop Luis Antonio Tagle of the Diocese of Imus, chairman, Episcopal Commission on the Doctrine of the Faith of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, during the Pope’s Day celebration of the Inauguration of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, successor to the Apostle Peter and Supreme Pastor of the Universal Church, on April 26, 2005 at 10 a.m. at the Manila Cathedral.

To be gathered together this morning for this Eucharistic Celebration is a cause of great joy for all of us and for me. We would like to thank you for being part of this thanksgiving. We thank the children, the youth, the sick, the elderly, and the hearing impaired. We thank also the religious women and men, the seminarians, and the deacons here present. We extend our thanks to our public servants in government, our President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the members of the Congress, the Senate, and the Judiciary. We acknowledge the presence of former President Corazon C. Aquino. We thank the members of the diplomatic corps as well. We thank our brother Archbishops and Bishops, Archbishop Antonio Franco, Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales, the Archbishop of Manila and Archbishop Fernando Capalla, the President of the CBCP.

After being thrown into grief by the death of our beloved Pope John Paul II, we thank God for giving us a new shepherd, Pope Benedict XVI, who officially began his Petrine Ministry last Sunday, the 24 th of April 2005. The Ministry of Peter - that is what every pope undertakes. The pope is the successor of Peter. He is the bishop of Rome, the place of Peter’s martyrdom. He is, according to the teaching of Vatican I and Vatican II (LG 23), “the perpetual and visible source and foundation of unity of the bishops and the multitude of the faithful.”

Our thoughts therefore turn to Peter. Who is Peter? What is his ministry in the Church? What does it mean for a pope to succeed him in this ministry?

I guess one reason why I was invited to preach this morning is to lead you to a theological reflection on the papacy. So please bear with me. Join me in viewing again the mosaic found in scripture that will give us the figure and significance of this person Peter.

In the Gospel proclaimed this morning, John 21:15-19, Jesus entrusted to Peter, who had professed his love, the mission to feed and tend his sheep. Let us remember that this is the same Peter who earlier in the same Gospel had gone out fishing, caught nothing and then witnessed the miraculous catch of fish after following the words of a stranger, who in fact, was the Risen Lord. I am tempted to ask, “How could Jesus have chosen this helpless, unproductive fisherman to feed and tend his sheep?” Can you trust a fisherman who cannot handle fish to do well with sheep? Did Jesus know what he was doing? What brought Peter to this great responsibility?

Looking at the totality of the New Testament, we could say that Peter’s commission, apart from being a grace emanating from Jesus’ choice and calling, was due to his being a witness to the Risen Lord, whose power conquered Peter’s own helplessness and whose word produced what Peter could not by his human skills. Peter, the shepherd of Jesus’ flock, was first and foremost, a witness to Christ in love.

What does it mean now to feed and to tend the sheep? How would Peter do it? The answer, from the Gospel of St. John, is by loving the flock of Jesus and loving the flock in loving Jesus. But how will he love? He will love by witnessing to the truth of the Risen Lord. He feeds the sheep with Christ’s truth and leads them to his truth, like the witness hailed by Isaiah in today’s First Reading, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings glad tidings, who announces peace, who bears good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’”

St. Paul himself recognized Peter as the first witness to the resurrection of Jesus (I Corinthians 15:5 – He appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve). After 14 years of mission, Paul brought to Peter, John and James the Gospel he was preaching to the Gentiles. Why? Paul said, “Lest somehow I should be running, or have run in vain” (Galatians 2:2) In other words, in the consciousness of the great apostle Paul and of the early Church, Peter’s witness was a criterion or reference point of the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Even before the resurrection, Peter already occupied a privileged position among the Twelve, a position that made him a unique witness to Jesus. On many occasions, Peter spoke on behalf of the Twelve. With James and John he belonged to the group of three close friends of Jesus, and within the group of three, Peter was pre-eminent. But probably the most important indication of Peter’s being a witness to the faith about Jesus is found in Matthew 16:13-23. When Jesus asked them in Caesarea Philippi, “Who do you say that I am?” it was Peter who replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Peter’s confession of faith, of the truth about Jesus, will resound as the faith of the Church from generation to generation. Up to now, with Peter, we say, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!”

Then Jesus told him as a promise, “You are Peter (Petros), and on this rock ( petra), I will build my Church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.” Simon, the fisherman, the witness and confessor of the faith in Jesus, is now Peter, the rock. Likewise, every successor of Peter is the bedrock of the faith by witnessing to the truth of Jesus.

The next question is, “What type of rock is Peter?” We can get a hint from Jesus’ reaction to Peter’s confession. Jesus said, “Blest are you Simon, son of John, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” In other words, the solidity of Peter’s confession is not due to “flesh and blood”, to his human qualities and capabilities. We have seen already how limited Peter’s human capabilities were, how helpless and unproductive this fisherman was in his field of expertise, fishing! He could not have produced, humanly speaking, such a lofty spiritual insight. Jesus attributed Peter’s faith to the revelation of the Father. It is the Father’s grace, it is God’s mercy, talked about in the second reading that makes Peter a witness. It is the same mercy that makes Paul an apostle. Yes, the true and real rock on which Peter should rely is the grace and mercy of God. Jesus’ trust makes Peter the rock of the Church’s faith. One theologian rightly said, “The designation ‘rock’ yields no pedagogical or psychological meaning: it can be understood only in terms of mystery, that is to say, christologically and ecclesiologically. Simon Peter would be by Jesus’ commission precisely what he is not by ‘flesh and blood.’”

The truth of this interpretation is verified quite quickly, when Peter allowed “flesh and blood” to dictate on him. After confessing Jesus as the Messiah, Peter heard how Jesus would become a suffering, humiliated Messiah, according to God’s plan. At once, Peter interjected, “God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” Then Jesus rebuked him, “Get behind me, Satan. You are making me trip and fall. You are not judging by God’s but by human standards.” The rock has become a stumbling block so soon when “flesh and blood” determined his standards. One theologian commented, “Left to his own resources, the one who by God’s grace is permitted to be the bedrock is a stone on the path that makes the foot stumble.” The rock can become a scandal, a stumbling block. If the gates of hell will not prevail on the Church, it is not because of Peter’s tenacity but because the merciful God will not abandon the Church to the powers of destruction. It is with reason therefore that one theologian noted, “On the one hand the papacy remains the foundation of the Church in virtue of a power that does not derive from herself. At the same time, individual popes have again and again become a scandal because they want to precede, not follow, Christ; because they believe that they must determine by their own logic the path that only Christ himself can decide.” So Peter is rock only insofar as he relies, not on “flesh and blood” but on the grace and mercy of the Father.

To Peter who was promised God’s faithful help, to Peter whom Jesus promised to pray for in the Last Supper, so that his faith may not falter (Lk 22:32), to this same Peter, Jesus gave the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the keys of binding and loosing. These are the keys of forgiveness and mercy that Peter himself needed countless times, for him to remain the true rock of faith. Peter therefore is not only the bearer of the keys of forgiveness but more often the recipient of forgiveness and mercy. The Church entrusted to Peter is no different from him. I quote from a theologian who said, “The Church is founded upon forgiveness. Peter himself is personal embodiment of this truth, for he is permitted to be the bearer of the keys after having stumbled, confessed, and received the grace of pardon. The Church is by nature the home of forgiveness, and it is thus that chaos is banished from within her. She is held together by forgiveness, and Peter is the perpetual living reminder of this reality: she is not a communion of the perfect, but a communion of sinners who need and seek forgiveness. The keys to the kingdom of heaven are the words of forgiveness, a human being cannot speak of oneself but granted by God’s power alone.”

Let us behold the mosaic of who Peter is. Peter - commissioned by Jesus to feed and tend his sheep by witnessing to the truth in love. Peter - the bedrock of faith, due only to God’s grace, and a stumbling block when he is self-reliant. Peter - the bearer of the keys of forgiveness and mercy. Such is Peter’s ministry. Such is the ministry of his successor. The figure of Peter is the symbol of the Church in the world. The Church, like Peter, is called to witness to Jesus, the Truth, the Way and the Life. The Church, like Peter, is salt and light to the world when it is open to God’s grace. The Church, like Peter, is the offer of forgiveness, mercy and unity to a world of division, violence and oppression.

There are indeed many theological and pastoral perspectives on the Petrine ministry. The one you have heard, the one I have opted to use in this homily comes in large part from one theologian, the one I have been quoting extensively. His name is Joseph Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI. It must be disconcerting for him who has written on the Petrine ministry as a scholar, to be the actual successor of Peter. To write about it and to be it are two distinct realities. I know it from personal experience. I wrote my doctoral dissertation on the communion of bishops among themselves and with the pope, called “Episcopal Collegiality,” in theological jargon. Of course I learned a lot when writing it, but when I became a bishop, I realized that living it was quite another matter. The writing and the living are two different things. What Joseph Ratzinger had written then as a scholarly opinion has now become an existential cry, when he said at his first message as pope on April 20,2005, “I, the successor of Peter, repeat with trepidation the anxious words of the fisherman from Galilee, and I listen again with intimate emotion to the reassuring promise of the divine Master. If the weight of the responsibility that now lies on my poor shoulders is enormous, the divine power on which I can count is surely immeasurable.” It is not the theologian speaking; it is Peter. The brilliant mind behind many theological books, now declared plainly, without the niceties of theological discourse, at the inauguration of his pontificate on April 24, 2005, “My real programme of governance is not to do my own will, not to pursue my own ideas, but to listen, together with the whole Church, to the word and the will of the Lord, to be guided by Him, so that He himself will lead the Church at this hour of our history.” This is Peter, not relying on “flesh and blood”, but on the mercy of the Father. And like Peter, who in today’s Gospel confessed three times his humble love for Jesus, the love of feeding, tending, and dying for the sheep, Pope Benedict declared as a confidence of the heart, to the vast crowd at his inauguration, “At this moment I can only say: pray for me, that I may learn to love the Lord more and more. Pray for me, that I may learn to love his flock more and more - in other words, you, the holy Church, each one of you and all of you together. Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves. Let us pray for one another, that the Lord will carry us and that we will learn to carry one another.” This is not a theologian secure with his research. This is Peter, begging for the assurance of prayer from the Church.

Yes, dear Pope Benedict XVI, Successor of Peter, we, especially the Filipino Catholics, will pray for you - that like Peter, you may witness to the truth of Christ amidst conflicting ideologies, that you may rejoice in God’s grace rather than in your immense talent and power, that you may receive and give mercy and forgiveness. We will pray that you may remain humble, gentle and self-effacing. We will pray that you will not forget that you could be as helpless and weak as the other sheep. We will pray that you may place on your shoulders the many poor, lost, tired, and weary sheep of the world’s barren pasture. Yes, Pope Benedict XVI, we will pray that with you, we may not be afraid to follow Jesus Christ, the true Shepherd, to the fullness of life! Amen.