Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, Apostle
Parents lay the foundation of their children’s beliefs, habits, skills, and dispositions. My own parents taught me many things: concrete skills like how to speak and walk; values like the importance of study and discipline; and virtues such as compassion, love, and generosity. What they handed on to me (and continue to hand on) enabled me to grow and mature into adulthood.
Today’s feast of the Chair of Saint Peter celebrates the faith that has been handed on to us through the apostles. In the liturgy, the Church says that God has set us fast on the Apostle Peter’s confession of faith, a confession that we hear in today’s Gospel reading: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. This apostolic confession of Jesus Christ, which is both an event in the past and also the still-living faith of the Church, precedes the faith of each individual Christian. Moreover, this living apostolic faith, symbolized in the Creed we profess each Sunday, serves as a measure (kanon) for our own faith as we seek to be faithful to Christ in our own day and age.
Today, let ponder this given-ness of our faith, the way it precedes us and shapes us. Let us give thanks for the gift of apostolic faith and ask that the Spirit might teach us to be faithful to this foundational confession of the apostles, even as we journey forward into new and different situations.