The Feast of the Chair of St. Peter has been celebrated on February 22nd in the Roman Catholic Church since the 4th century. The chair is enthroned today in Bernini’s massive setting behind the main altar in St. Peter’s Basilica. A window bearing the symbol of the Holy Spirit casts its light on the chair and those it represents – Peter the Apostle and those who succeed him.
Today’s feast derives from an ancient Roman custom. Families gathered at their burial places during an 8 day celebration culminating on February 22 to remember their dead. At a banquet a chair was provided for the living head of the family who welcomed new members.
You can see why such a setting would inspire of feast for Peter. He presided over the family of the church and spoke for it from its beginning in Jerusalem. He baptized and welcomed Cornelius and his family in the church; ; he was its leader in Antioch in Syria. Jesus said to him:
You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.””
Appropriately, the chair of Peter symbolizes those welcomed into the Catholic Church. Early on, Peter’s chair was set up near the baptistery in the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome. The chair of Peter is not a royal throne. It’s a father’s chair, a teacher’s chair. Appropriately, the pope today and his successors are called “Il Papa”.
Back in the 4th century, St. Jerome was baptized in the baptistery of St. Peter’s and he spoke of returning there to remember that great moment in his life when he was welcomed in the family of the church:
“I decided to consult the Chair of Peter, where faith was proclaimed by lips of an Apostle; I now come to ask for nourishment for my soul there, where once I received the garment of Christ. I follow no leader save Christ, so I enter into communion with you, that is, with the Chair of Peter, for this I know is the rock upon which the Church is built”.
Today’s a good day to look at our present “chairman”, “Il Papa”. Pope Francis , who became pope on March 13, 2013 and to ask God to keep him strong and faithful as a father and teacher of the church.
Here’s a study of Bernini’s setting for Peter’s chair.
Jesus summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the Gospel will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? What could one give in exchange for his life? Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this faithless and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” Mark 8:34-9:1
He also said to them, “Amen, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the Kingdom of God has come in power.”
Mark notes that Jesus summoned the crowd with his disciples as he begins his journey to Jerusalem. Here is a promise and a teaching meant for all.
Jesus tells those who wish to know “his Father’s glory” and see the Kingdom of God come in power that they must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow him.
It’s no small gain he promises, not the riches or honors or pleasures human thinking can conceive. It’s no less than the Father’s glory and the glory of his kingdom. No less than your life must be given for that goal
He tells us all to take up the cross that comes from the circumstances of our lives, the cross that comes from life in our world, from the life we choose to lead and how we lead it.
His call is made to all humanity. All creation is called to join him on his journey to Jerusalem.
For almost two weeks at Mass we’ve been reading about the creation of the world and the origin and development of the human family, beginning with Adam and Eve, from the first 11 chapters of Genesis. An important source for understanding where we come from and our relationship with. God and creation, The medieval illustration above has a raven picking on a dead carcass, but Noah greets the dove holding an olive branch. How do we look at our world in flood times like now, as dead or as living?
In today’s reading God renews with Noah and his descendants the covenant made with humanity and the earth. Once again, after the fall, as human beings go into different lands and take up various trades, they’re blessed by God. The renewal of the covenant is an act of mercy, the responsorial psalm for today reminds us.
“The LORD looked down from his holy height, from heaven he beheld the earth, To hear the groaning of the prisoners, to release those doomed to die.” (Psalm 102)
God’s blessings will continue through time. His abiding mercy is signified in the God’s promise God there will not be another flood to devastate the earth. The rainbow signifies hope and mercy.
“I will establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all bodily creatures be destroyed by the waters of a flood; there shall not be another flood to devastate the earth.” (Genesis 9,12)
God’s blessings continues through time. God’s mercy will abide, but the human family still enjoys freedom. Made in the likeness of God, we’re free, and what we do with our freedom has consequences, not only for ourselves, but for creation itself.
The abuse of human freedom leads to dire consequences for humanity and creation itself. “When my people did not hear my voice, when Israel would not obey, I left them in their stubbornness of heart to follow their own designs.” (Psalm 81) God does not micro manage history.
Today some see God’s promise “never again shall all bodily creatures be destroyed” as repudiating the threat of climate change, but that’s not the promise made in Genesis. Human “stubbornness” can have disastrous consequences for humanity and the created world.
For humanity to flourish, it needs a good relationship with creation. Human flourishing doesn’t happen without a relationship with creation, not a dominating relationship, or a selfish relationship, but one of love and care. Creation rises and falls with us.
Good to be aware of the question of water as it’s discussed in the United Nations. Here’s something from Passionists International:
And regarding ocean biodiversity, we recommend viewing the film, “BluePeril”, which raises grave concerns regarding current efforts to increase deep sea mining of precious minerals in the rush to a transition to green energy, creating “blue peril”.
https://dsm-campaign.org/blue-peril/The International Seabed Authority has been in existence for over 40 years, and has a mandate to organize, regulate and control all mineral-related activities in the international seabed for the benefit of humankind. To date, ISA has entered into 17 contracts for exploration which involves scraping of the ocean floor. We know however, that such mining risks destroying the breeding grounds of marine life. One such project in the territorial waters of Papua New Guinea will be the world’s first deep-seabed mining project aiming to extract copper, gold and silver. Many countries are calling for a pause, moratorium or complete ban on deep sea mining. Due to the imminent risks, French President Emmanuel Macron has called for a ban, citing the need to “protect the blue heart of our planet that sustains us all…to put sustainability and intergenerational equity first.”
The focus will continue with the UN Water Conference in March (22-24), New York… (Scroll down for further information: Upcoming Commission Meetings.)
These conferences are attempting to address what is referred to as the triple planetary crisis – climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. All intersect, and all contribute to the success or failure of each and every one of the Sustainable Development Goals. We are all aware of the urgency to decrease global warming, and this requires countries to live up to our commitments to limit greenhouse gases/carbon emissions. While even fifty years ago we were
urged to reduce, re-use, recycle, unheeded, we are facing a fierce urgency of now. We have reached unsustainable levels of production and consumption, and “our unlimited extraction of resources from the Earth is having a devastating impact on the natural world, propelling climate change, destroying nature , and raising pollution levels.” See more re: triple planetary crisis: https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/speech/triple-planetary-crisis-forging-new- relationship-between-people-and-earth
Pope Francis’ Laudato Si has stirred the hearts and consciousness of all of us to respond to this moral, ethical, and spiritual challenge to love and care for all of creation, and ensure the well- being of all the world’s inhabitants. It is our Call to Action. And we are invited to join with people of other faiths and Indigenous traditions in responding! See UN Environmental Program and World Parliament of World’s Religions’ joint project and rich resource, Faith for Earth: A Call to Action
Ruins of Caesarea Philippi, 20 miles north of Capernaum
Jesus and his disciples set out for the villages of Caesarea Philippi. Along the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” They said in reply, “John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others one of the prophets.” And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter said to him in reply, “You are the Christ.” Then he warned them not to tell anyone about him.
He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days. He spoke this openly. Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. At this he turned around and, looking at his disciples, rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” Mark 8: 27-33
“ Jesus and his disciples set out for the villages of Caesarea Philippi.” A change of place prepares for something significant in Mark’s Gospel, especially here as Jesus and his disciples begin the journey to Jerusalem. Responding to Jesus’ question, “Who do you say I am?” Peter, speaking for the others, says “You are the Christ.” The Messiah. Matthew’s gospel later adds “you are the Son of living God.”
Mark’s first readers from the church of Rome would certainly note the place of confession. Caesaria honors Caesar. They would also recognize that Peter, after acknowledging the divine mission of Jesus falls into thinking “as human beings do” after Jesus announces he will suffer greatly, be rejected, die and rise again. How easily it is to fall into “human thinking” when faced with suffering.
In tomorrow’s reading, Jesus says “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” Mark’s Roman readers would also recognize–as we should too – that Jesus speaks to all, as well as to his disciples. We are all on the journey to Jerusalem.
Today and tomorrow are crucial passages from Mark’s Gospel.
Noah and the flood is a major story, not only in the Old and New Testament, but also in our liturgy and our summaries of faith. Jesus says you have to understand the times of Noah to understand his times. (Matthew 24:37) To understand baptism, you have to appreciate the story of Noah and the flood, the Letter of Peter says. ( 1 Peter 3:20)
The patristic tradition is filled with commentaries on the story of Noah. He’s an image of Jesus, the Savior. He’s the new Adam, who brings humanity to the safety of a new creation. The wood of the ark prefigures the saving wood of the cross. The ark is a symbol of the church. Are those who enter the arch the righteous, or are sinners part of the church as well? The waters of the flood, are they waters that destroy, or are they waters than bring new life?
Noah and the ark is one of the most popular images in the catacombs. The story elicits questions about death and life through the simplest symbols.
At the end of forty days Noah opened the hatch he had made in the ark, and he sent out a raven, to see if the waters had lessened on the earth. It flew back and forth until the waters dried off from the earth. Then he sent out a dove, to see if the waters had lessened on the earth. But the dove could find no place to alight and perch, and it returned to him in the ark, for there was water all over the earth. Putting out his hand, he caught the dove and drew it back to him inside the ark. He waited seven days more and again sent the dove out from the ark. In the evening the dove came back to him, and there in its bill was a plucked-off olive leaf! So Noah knew that the waters had lessened on the earth. He waited still another seven days and then released the dove once more; and this time it did not come back. (Genesis 8:6-14)
Noah sends out a raven and a dove to discover whether it’s safe to land and disembark. The raven is a bird that feeds on dead things. It sees no sign of life. The dove, on the other hand, finds a sign of life, the olive branch. Not quickly or easily, we should note.
Two ways of looking at the world of Noah and the world of the Son of Man? Two ways of looking at the world of today. Like a raven, or like a dove?
The last words of our reading, God’s promise, are blocked off for emphasis:
” As long as the earth lasts, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, Summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” (Genesis 8: 20-22)
“Do you still not understand?” Jesus said this to his disciples in Mark’s gospel right after curing a blind man who only gradually gains his sight. He has to lay his hands on the man’s eyes a second time before he sees clearly. Is that the way we see and understand, gradually?
The cross Jesus says we all must bear takes many forms and I wonder if one form it takes in our time is the cross of confusion. We like clear sight for ourselves and everyone else, but in times of great change confusion is inevitable. Like the man in the gospel we’re living in a world of “talking trees” and that’s hard to take, reasonable, resourceful people that we are. It’s humbling to live in confusing times like ours..
It makes us angry. There’s a lot of anger around us today, the anger that boils over and lashes out, or the anger that retreats into a fortress of resistence and isolation.
Pope Francis often speaks of patience. He said patience keeps the church going. It keeps the world going too. He spoke once of the music of patience, a patience that hears and waits, like the patient blind man who waits for the hand of Jesus to reach out again.
That’s one of the lasting teachings of the Gospel of Mark. We’re human, we think as humans do, and that means we learn gradually, by patience.
“When Jesus and his disciples arrived at Bethsaida, people brought to him a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. Putting spittle on his eyes he laid his hands on the man and asked, “Do you see anything?” Looking up the man replied, “I see people looking like trees and walking.” Then he laid hands on the man’s eyes a second time and he saw clearly; his sight was restored and he could see everything distinctly. Then he sent him home and said, “Do not even go into the village.” (Mark 8,22-26)
A few years ago Nova on PBS featured a program called“The Secrets of Noah’s Ark.” In early times, floods were common in the “Fertile Crescent,” the area in Mesopotamia {modern Iraq} where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and the ancient city of Babylon were located. Floods, sometimes great floods, occurred, so the people had to be ready. You had to keep your boats handy, and a big boat also– you never knew..
But people then, as now, had short memories. “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. In those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day that Noah entered the ark. They did not know until the flood came and carried them all away.” (Matthew 24, 37-38)
I suspect some Babylonian priests then– meteorologists and story tellers of the age– came up with a flood story thousands of years before the Noah story in Genesis, to keep people on their toes – and maybe challenge some early climate change deniers too. It reinforced important advice: “ Keep your boats in shape and make sure a big boat’s around for ‘the big one.’”
Jewish priests and scribes in 6th century Babylon saw the story a perfect fit for the story of human origins they were telling their people. For them the take-away from the story was not to keep a big boat handy, but to be faithful to God like Noah and Abraham and their families. If they were faithful, God would save them from the flood and bring them to the Promised Land.
The Nova program showed evidence from today of those big boats there “just in case.”
The story gave hope to the Jews driven from Jerusalem to exile in Babylon where, “By the rivers of Bablyon, we sat ad wept, remembering Zion.” (Psalm 137) Christians– the pictures in the catacombs remind us (above)– saw Noah as a sign that the waters of baptism saved them from death and brought them the promise of paradise lost by Adam and Eve.
So the story of Noah and the ark is more than a myth.
Tower of Babel. Pieter Bruegel the Elder. 16th century
After the deluge, God renews a covenant with creation, and the descendants of Noah begin to fulfill God’s command “to increase and multiply and fill the earth.”
But then something else happens: human beings want to be together, so they build a city. A common origin and language draws them together, not just as families or clans, but in a larger society. They look for human flourishing in a city. (Genesis 11,1-9)
Unfortunately, they overreach. They want to get their heads into the heavens and so they plan a tower into the sky. Like Adam and Eve reaching for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they want to be like gods, “presuming to do whatever they want,” Their tower becomes a Tower of Babel. It collapses and they’re scattered over the world, leaving their city unfinished.
It’s important to recognize that the Genesis story does not claim God’s against human beings building a city. The bible, in fact, often sees the city as a place favoring human flourishing. In the Book of Jonah, God values the great city of Nineveh. Jesus sees Jerusalem, the Holy City, cherished by the Lord, the place where he dwells. The Spirit descends on his church in the city. The Genesis story sees the city as good, but it can be destroyed by sin and human pride..
The picture at the beginning of this blog is a painting of the Tower of Babel by the 16th century Dutch artist, Pieter Bruegel the Elder. It’s situates Babel in Antwerp, one of the key seaports of the time. Its shaky structure suggests it’s too ambitiously built. Still incomplete, it may not last. So the painter offers a warning against ambition and not caring for people, especially the needy.
It’s interesting to note that Pope Francis encourages mayors from cities to plan well. Commentators say the pope, conscious of a rising isolationism that’s affecting nations and international bodies today, sees cities to be agents for unifying peoples. They’re important places for humans to flourish. The United Nations also sees cities as key resources in the challenge that comes with climate change.
The picture at the end? You don’t have to be told. A great city. Still, its greatness will be judged, not by its big buildings or businesses, but how it encourages human flourishing.
God was pleased with the sacrifice of Abel, rather than that of Cain. St. Ambrose explains why:
“Jesus told us to pray urgently and often, so that our prayers should not be long and tedious but short, earnest and frequent. Long elaborate prayers overflow with pointless phrases, and long gaps between prayers eventually stretch out into complete neglect.
Next he advises that when you ask forgiveness for yourself then you must take special care to grant it also to others. In that way your action can add its voice to yours as you pray. The apostle also teaches that when you pray you must be free from anger and from disagreement with anyone, so that your prayer is not disturbed or broken into.
The apostle teaches us to pray anywhere, and the Saviour says ‘Go into your room’ – but you must understand that this “room” is not the room with four walls that confines your body when you are in it, but the secret space within you in which your thoughts are enclosed and where your sensations arrive. That is your prayer-room, always with you wherever you are, always secret wherever you are, with your only witness being God.
Above all, you must pray for the whole people: that is, for the whole body, for every part of your mother the Church, whose distinguishing feature is mutual love. If you ask for something for yourself then you will be praying for yourself only – and you must remember that more grace comes to one who prays for others than to any ordinary sinner. If each person prays for all people, then all people are effectively praying for each.
In conclusion, if you ask for something for yourself alone, you will be the only one asking for it; but if you ask for benefits for all, all in their turn will be asking for them for you. For you are in fact one of the “all.” Thus it is a great reward, as each person’s prayers acquire the weight of the prayers of everyone. There is nothing presumptuous about thinking like this: on the contrary, it is a sign of greater humility and more abundant fruitfulness.”
The Victor's Place 