21st Sunday of Ordinary Time: I Will Build My Church

In thinking of this Gospel, I was reminded of a time that I went to a restaurant with one of my friends. A man, another patron, passed by our table and said to me, “I like your shirt”. I looked down and realized that it was a shirt from one of the Steubenville conferences. I thanked him and presumed that if he knew about the Steubenville conference, he must be Catholic. When I asked him if he was, he replied, “No. I used to be. I just go to Him (God) directly now, rather than through man-made rules.” I weighed whether or not I should respond to what I regard as a rather ill-informed view of the Christianity, and let it go, later regretting having missed the opportunity. I should have gently challenged his statement.

Today’s Gospel challenges the notion held by so many self-identifying Christians, who think it’s merely an individualized faith, meant for each person, on his/her own path, to figure out on his/her own, and to be lived on his/her own terms. For sure, Jesus didn’t put all the visible structures in place that we see today, but he clearly had leadership and structure in mind.

“I say to you, 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."

And in our reading of the Acts of the Apostles, we see how the Holy Spirit began to guide the leadership and the initial shaping of the structure, the nascent Church, entrusted to Peter and the Apostles. They, in turn, passed it on to the popes and bishops that would follow, all the way to this day—yes, even bad popes, bad bishops, bad priests, and bad lay-Christians. But without what Jesus gave them and they handed-on, the wheels of Jesus’ Mission would have gotten stuck and grinded to a halt.

I think of the man’s response to me: “I just go to Him (God) directly now, rather than through man-made rules.” Yes, in some ways the experience of our faith is direct: just me and God. But it’s more than that. As important as our personal spiritual development is—our coming to know Jesus as individuals—we’re missing something essential if we don’t see ourselves as something more than just isolated entities with our isolated experiences.

These months of pandemic, perhaps especially as we were under the Stay at Home mandate, made it so hard to feel like a collective body. Even as things are a little closer to normal—parks are open, restaurants are serving in some capacities—I think of all the people who remain in isolation, whether due to advanced age or health conditions that put them at greater risk. For so many of those, who long for the sense of connection, to be present within the community of faith—my heart hurts for them. There’s just no substitute for being here together, for us who believe that God comes to us, tangible so, through the sacraments and their graces.

But it’s not just the physical isolation. Last Sunday I spoke about the notion of being church, a collective body that is also undermined by so much ideological upheaval—the sociological and political disputes that splinter us apart.

Even in these ways that it gets lost on us, the Christian people are not just an assortment of individuals operating in isolation; Jesus called us into a collective body. He appointed leadership to guide us, to move forward in his Mission.

I say all of this, and remind us, as sons and daughters, because just as we can at times, fail to appreciate our own biological mothers, we can fail to be grateful for our mother Church, even allowing people to say negative things about her, most often born out of ignorance or fear.

But aside from notions of Church, I ask you: Think of what it is that you appreciate about the Christian faith itself. Whatever it is—the beautiful variety of spiritual expressions, advocacy for the poor and all the Works of Mercy, the promotion of the arts, the preservation of our Sacred Scriptures, liturgy and sacraments, and even the intellectual tradition of questioning the things we take for granted, including the Church herself. Whatever it is that you love about this Christian faith of ours—without our mother Church, without her leadership that began with Peter, and her structure—it likely would not be. Let us be grateful for our mother—this gift of Jesus, first given to Peter and the Apostles, and let us pray for her. “I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.”