Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A (2026) - Fr Anthony Walsh, OP

There is something deeply mysterious in the choice of St Peter. Our Lord asks the disciples who people say that he is. Various answers are given: John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, one of the prophets. Then the question becomes personal: “But you, who do you say that I am?” Peter answers: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus tells him that this confession has not come from flesh and blood. Peter has not simply worked it out. He has received something. The Father has revealed the Son to him. Then comes the astonishing word: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church.” Behind that saying stand some of the great moments of Israel’s history. 

We may think first of Abraham. God called one man, gave him a new name, and made him a point of beginning for a people. Israel could look back to Abraham as to the rock from which it had been hewn. In Isaiah, the people are told: “Look to the rock from which you were hewn,” and immediately afterwards, “Look to Abraham your father.” Now Christ gives Simon a new name. The parallel is not exact, but it is suggestive. As Abraham stands at the beginning of the people of Israel, Peter is given a foundational place in the people Christ is gathering.

Then there is the image from our first reading, from Isaiah. Eliakim is given the key of the house of David. What he opens no one shall shut; what he shuts no one shall open. Now Christ says to Peter: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” Again, the image is significant. A key is given to one who is entrusted with responsibility. Peter is not the king. Christ is the King. Peter is not the owner of the household. He is entrusted with its care.

So there is a pattern here. Peter is the rock, but Christ builds the Church. Peter receives the keys, but the Kingdom belongs to Christ. Peter binds and looses, but his authority is received. Everything begins in gift. 

This is just as well, because Peter is Peter. Jesus knows him completely. He knows his generosity and his impetuosity. He knows his courage and his fear. He knows that within a few verses Peter will resist the mystery of the Cross and hear the terrible words: “Get behind me, Satan.” He knows also what will happen later: the courtyard, the questions, the fear, the three denials. None of this is hidden from Christ when he says, “You are Peter.” Peter is not chosen because he has proved himself flawless. He is chosen because Christ chooses him.

We sometimes imagine that God chooses people because they are obviously suited to what he asks of them. Yet Scripture repeatedly shows us something more mysterious. Abraham, Moses, David, the prophets, Peter: all are chosen, all are flawed, all must learn what their election means.

St Paul, contemplating the mystery of God’s ways, reaches a point where explanation gives way to wonder: “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways!” Who has known the mind of the Lord? Why Peter? We can say something about what he is chosen for. We can see the task entrusted to him. We can see the images of Abraham and Eliakim. We can see that he is to be a point of unity, of authority, of confession. But why this man? At a certain point, we cannot know. It is God who chooses.

That also helps us understand the ministry of Peter’s successors. The Church is not led through a world that stands still. The opening prayer of today’s Mass speaks of us living inter mundanas varietates: amid the vicissitudes of this world. Vicissitudes is a good word to reflect on our world. It speaks of changes, reversals, uncertainties, the rise and fall of powers, the shifting of opinion, the fears and hopes of one generation after another. The Church passes through all of these. Peter and his successors must lead her through them, not because they are beyond weakness – Peter himself makes that clear.  They are entrusted to a task by Christ.

The purpose of that task is not that the Church should escape the vicissitudes of history. It is that, amid them, she should continue to say what Peter first said at Caesarea Philippi: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” The world changes but Christ does not.

So the prayer of the Church asks that amid all these changes our hearts may be fixed where true joys are to be found.  The rock upon which she is built, the keys that bind and loosen – the purpose of Peter’s ministry. It is not that our hearts should be fixed on Peter, but that Peter should help keep the Church fixed on Christ.

Fr Anthony Walsh, OP is the Master of Novices, assigned to St Laurence's Priory, North Adelaide, South Australia.