22nd Sunday 2020
Jeremiah 20:7-9; Romans 12:1-2; Matthew 16: 21-27
OUCH! Where did that come from? Talk about thunder in a blue sky! Poor Peter—we know that he normally puts his foot in things, gets them wrong, but for once he has got it right. He has made a profession of faith on behalf of the whole Church—“you are the Christ, the Son of the living God”—and has been pronounced blessed for doing so. Even more than that, he has been named Peter, the rock on which the Church is to be built, and has been entrusted with the keys of the Kingdom, and the power of binding and loosing. Peter is riding high.
Then suddenly he is brought back down to earth, not so much with a bump as with a resounding crash—and all because he was doing his best, trying to live up to the responsibilities he had been given. Life can be cruel at times, not least when one is trying to follow the Master.
It is easy to imagine Peter’s pride in his work, and his bafflement when, instead of being commended, he is given the sharpest of reprimands. He has been appointed leader of the Church, and he seizes the first opportunity to exercise that leadership. The Lord whom he loves, and who has given him this responsibility, starts to talk about suffering, and about being put to death.
This is Peter’s chance to show what an excellent leader he will be. He goes about it exactly the right way. He doesn’t raise the issue in public, but takes the Lord aside and speaks to Him confidentially. “Don’t worry about that Lord. You’ve got ME now. I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Have you ever been commended for something, and set out straight away to prove how merited it was, only to discover that you have fallen flat on your face? that your initiative, which you genuinely thought would bring you plaudits, lands you instead with a kick up the backside? That is how Peter must have felt.
Instead of being grateful, Jesus snaps at Peter “Get behind me, Satan.” What a shattering blow that must have been to his self-esteem.
Why does Our Lord respond so vehemently, and what does His reprimand mean? Remember that Satan was, first of all, the Tempter. So he appears as the serpent in Eden, so he is in the Book of Job, tempting Job to curse God. Thus had Jesus encountered him in the wilderness as He prepared for His public ministry, and thus He encounters him now as Satan uses the voice and the good will of Peter to tempt Our Lord again.
If you have ever faced an unpleasant task, something which you know that you have to do but would prefer to avoid, how do you react if someone close to you says “No, you really don’t have to do it”? Isn’t there a massive temptation to grasp at that advice, to adopt it, even though, deep down, you know it to be wrong?
So it was for Jesus when his good friend and trusted lieutenant offered Him a route away from the suffering that lay ahead. In Mark’s account of the incident, Jesus is described as “turning, and seeing His disciples”. It is almost as if He is turning at bay, almost overwhelmed by the temptation, His resolution renewed and restored only by the sight of His other followers. Thus He was enabled to recognise the cunning of the Tempter in using the good will of His friend, and to call the Tempter by name in what was actually a repudiation of Satan rather than a rebuke to Peter, whom Satan was using.
We are, though, faced with a question: what price papal infallibility? To answer that question we have to consider the meaning and limits of infallibility. The First Vatican Council decreed in 1870 that the Pope teaches infallibly when, in consultation with the bishops, he makes an ex cathedra pronouncement on faith or morals. In the one hundred and fifty years since the decree was promulgated, it has been invoked only once, in the definition of the Assumption of Our Lady. Allegedly, Pope St. John Paul II wished to have Pope St. Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae retrospectively declared infallible, only for his doctrinal watchdog, the future Pope Benedict XVI, to inform him that he did not have the authority to do so.
In Peter’s case, we can say that he spoke infallibly when it was “not flesh and blood which revealed [the truth] to him, but the Father in heaven.” When he spoke on his own initiative, he was not infallible, a truth which all his successors must remember.
