A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. When Jesus manifested himself to his disciples and had eaten their meal, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? Peter replied, yes, lord. You know that I love you. At which Jesus said, feed my lambs.
Second time, Jesus put his question. Simon, son of John, do you love me? Yes, lord, Peter said. You know that I love you. Jesus replied, tend my sheep.
Third time, Jesus asked Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter was hurt because Jesus had asked him a third time, do you love me? So Peter said, Lord, you know everything. You know well that I love you. Jesus said, feed my sheep.
I tell you solemnly, as a young man, you fastened your belt and went about as you pleased. But when you are older, you will stretch out your hands, and another will tie you fast and carry you off against your will. What Jesus said indicated the sort of death by which Peter was to glorify god. When Jesus had finished speaking, he said to him, that is Jesus said to Peter, follow me. And this is the gospel, the good news of the lord.
Praise the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. There is one indisputable fact about the New Testament. That is at least the four gospels and the acts of the apostles.
They are the chief they are the books that are chiefly concerned, and that is the preeminence of Peter. The preeminence of Peter. Now I'm not saying that the that the 12 apostles were as well organized as a first class baseball team. I am saying that beyond all shadow of a doubt, completely obvious to anyone who reads any text, any translation, in any language, there's one thing comes out perfectly clearly, and that is that Peter was the first among the 12. Of course, some of it is not exactly to his credit.
He's the first one who jumps into the water. He's the first one who plunges into the sea when our lord's discovered on the bank. He's the first one who speaks up. Where are we going to go, lord, if you if we leave you? And certainly to none of the disciples did our lord say what he said to Peter today.
It was only to Peter that Jesus said three times. Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? And then when you come into the book of the acts, that is the history of the the the first days of Christ's church of the new way.
What do you find? Here you find controversy, bitter controversy of whether Gentiles trying to come into the new way following Christ had to go through Judaism to be circumcised if there were males. There was a very hot dispute and bitter. What happens? Paul, who says he got his message, that he got his information straight from the from Jesus and from no man, what do they do?
They say, we will we will go to Jerusalem, and we will confer with the apostles. And who speaks? Who takes over? Peter. And to which of the apostles did Christ say, thou art Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church.
And you can't get a even the best intentioned Protestant commentators, this text, they don't know what to do with it. They try to tell you, well, you know, the Christ was speaking to Peter, but he meant all the apostles. Well, Christ was perfectly able to say what he meant. And if he meant to speak to all the apostles, he certainly went out of his way a 180 degrees to confuse the issue when he says, thou art Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church. It's hard to see 12 in that.
Now what I'm saying is that if there's any division among Christians today, the basic concept, the basic doctrine, the basic orthodoxy is church. And I mean a visible church with a hierarchy, with an organization of human beings, and I emphasize human beings. Of those 12 apostles, Judas was one of them. That's one twelve. You know what he turned out to be.
And Peter's record isn't too hot either. He denied Christ three times. Judas never denied Christ. Remember that. Judas never denied Christ.
Peter did. Peter says, I know not the man. I've often said I can make a better case out for Judas than I can for Peter. Yet it was on that rock, that weak sapling rock, if you want to mix up metaphors, that Christ said, I will build my church. And the Greek word is ekklesia.
And ekklesia doesn't mean a crowd. It doesn't mean a spiritual community. It means an organized group of people. Ekklesia. Now the reason I'm stressing if you take this gospel to what we've read today, there's nothing like that comparable to any of the other disciples.
Nothing. Now this Peter is not the church, but he's head of it, and that's extremely significant. You can't have an organization without a head, believe me. You can't have you can't have two quarterbacks on the football field. You can't have two quarterbacks in the what we call the marriage state.
You know the record of partnerships in business. It's miserable. People talk to me about partnerships of marriage. I say, well, go and look at the record of partnership business and see if you wanna join the league. Now today, the fir the first thing our holy father's practically, the first thing he said when he landed in New York Way on his last this recent visit was he warned them against fundamentalism.
Now fundamentalism rejects entirely this idea of the of a visible organized church. It holds up what they call the bible. They hold up a book. That goes back, of course, to the sixteenth century. And we have seen what has happened in three hundred years when you take and put your religion in Jesus Christ on a book which Christ did not write, which Christ did not give you, which Christ had never said you had to read, or anything else about it.
He never said anything about the written word. Not a single word. We even confuse the word gospel, which means the the good news as if that was completely identified, circumscribed, and exclusively contained in the written word. What happened for the first hundred years of the churches of the existence of Christianity? They hadn't they didn't have any New Testament.
You don't have a New Testament in any sense of the word of a of a canon or a collection of writings until about February. And the what we call the canon, that is the collect collection of sacred books that we today call the New Testament, we don't have that till the fifth or the sixth century. What happened on in between? What happened to the to the good news, the evangel? It it wasn't given to men only in a book.
I said only. It wasn't given exclusively in a book. It was given to a living church. Going therefore, teach ye all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, son, holy spirit, and teaching them everything that I have commanded you. Behold, I am with you all days even to the end of the world.
Where is Christ today? In a book? Who gives you the book? Where does it where who says that what people hold up as the word of god is an inspired word of god? Well, certainly, no translation's inspired.
I can tell you that. The word of god has come to us, first of all, by a living voice of Jesus Christ. It was given to 12 men, living voices. It was to be preserved by living voices to the end of time. Behold, I'm with you all days even to the end of the world.
This you you can't get out of this if you if you have a sense of logic. And let me tell you again, the first thing that Luther did was to throw out Aristotle with the pope. Aristotle, the chief god with with logic. Keep that in mind. As more than one person said, the essence of prodigism is illogicality.
They talk about a book as if it was the foundation of their faith, but where do you get the book? Who says it's inspired? How do you know it's the word of god? And so what this is so terribly important today when people many Catholics we have a big rate of attrition. Many Catholics are leaving the the practice of their religion and going over to fundamentalism because it appeals to a lot of things, and it does.
I do not deny it. But remember our blessed lord in Saint John when he talked about his flesh and his blood and that you had to eat his flesh and drink his blood. He didn't say a word about reading the bible. He said, if you don't eat my flesh, if you don't drink my blood, you're dead. Dead.
And what happened? The crowd left him. His disciples left him. And Christ turned to his apostles and said, will you leave me also? And good old Peter speaks up, well, Lord, he says, if we leave you, where are we going to go?
There you have Christ Christ Christ is a severe lord and master, has given us the truth, and he won't water it down even if his own apostles leave him. He will not water it down and neither will the rock on which his church is built. Peter, the rock. In the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. Amen.