Congratulations to all those who belong to the Ordinariate of the Chair of Peter a fine feast day.
Today is an opportunity to reflect of the will of the Savior about a necessary element for His Church: the Petrine Ministry.
Once upon a time, there were two feasts of Peter’s cathedra, chair, his official role as teacher who strengthens the brethren, etc.
On 18 January we would celebrate Peter’s cathedra in Rome.
On 22 February we would celebrated Peter’s cathedra in Antioch.
Peter went to Antioch, a key city in the East, and there had a disagreement with Paul. Peter spent about 7 years in Antioch, guiding the church as its bishop, before he pulled up stakes, and… I guess… cathedra… and went to Rome. He wouldn’t have taken a literal chair, but he did take his office and authority, given to him by Christ. He had this office and authority before he went to Antioch, while he was at Antioch, when he left Antioch, when he got to Rome and when he died in Rome.
Because the Petrine Ministry is necessary for the Church, Christ made it obviously a “hereditary” office, just as the Davidic stewards enjoyed with the conferral of keys. After Peter, another man held the Petrine Ministry and so on down to our day. That would have happened whether Peter had stayed in Jerusalem, stayed in Antioch, or had gone to Luoyang in China of the Han Dynasty.
ASIDE: Based on Peter’s move from Antioch to Rome, there are those who say that there is nothing which absolutely connects being the Successor of Peter with being Bishop of Rome. He was, after all, The Rock, when he was in Antioch. He was Vicar of Christ before he went to Antioch. He was Vicar of Christ when he was between Antioch and Rome. For all practical purposes Petrine Ministry and office of Bishop of Rome now seem to be fused together. Most authors think they are inseparable. But… they weren’t, unless one thinks that Christ gave Peter His authority in view of Peter’s future in Rome. Possible, but there’s no Biblical evidence for that. On the surface, it looks like one could be Successor of Peter (who can be anywhere) and someone else Bishop of Rome (who should be in Rome). The majority of theologians would, today, say that the Petrine Ministry, being Vicar of Christ, and being Bishop of Rome are now inseparable by the fact that Peter died in Rome. It is not entirely clear to me how his death “sealed the deal”, as it were.
However, were we to consider the implications of Peter being Vicar of Christ before getting either to Antioch or Rome, one supposes that, in time of need, some Successor of Peter could move his see to, say, Texas.
In any event, that’s an interesting thing to reflect on today when we have Antioch and Rome together on one day instead of two.
Let’s see the Novus Ordo prayers for the feast.
COLLECT:
Praesta, quaesumus, omnipotens Deus,
ut nullis nos permittas perturbationibus concuti,
quos in apostolicae confessionis petra solidasti.
There is nothing especially difficult about the grammar and vocabulary of this prayer, though it is theologically profound. NB: the solidasti is really solidavisti, a “syncopated” form.
I’m sure some of you can come up with your smooth but accurate versions.
SUPER OBLATA:
Ecclesiae tuae, quaesumus, Domine,
preces et hostias benignus admitte,
ut, beato Petro pastore,
ad aeternam perveniat hereditatem,
quo docente fidei tenet integritatem.
This is harder than the Collect. From the point of view of vocabulary, trying to get the right sense of admitto helps to establish the “mood” of the prayer. Admitto carries the weight of “suffering” or “allowing” something to enter into one’s presence. “Admit” is more eloquent than just “receive”. Admitto immediately lends a sense of God’s highness and our needy lowliness, waiting upon God’s good pleasure. Grammatically, you have to get that quo docente right, or nothing else works. I think the trick here is to avoid taking quo docente as an ablative absolute (which is what beato Petro pastore clearly is) and instead see it as an ablative of “agent”.
SLAVISHLY LITERAL RENDERING
O Lord, we beseech Thee,
kindly suffer to receive the prayers and sacrificial offerings of Thy Church,
so that, blessed Peter being Her shepherd,
and, by whom as he is teaching holds fast to the integritry of the Faith,
She may attain to the eternal inheritance.
POST COMMUNION:
Deus, qui nos,
beati Petri apostoli festivitatem celebrantes,
Christi Corporis et Sanguinis communione vegetasti,
praesta, quaesumus,
ut hoc redemptionis commercium
sit sacramentum nobis unitatis et pacis.
Commercium is a loaded word. It means “exchange”. It has a theological, not a mercantile sense, of course. Bread and wine were chosen by God, from all gifts He gave us, to be transformed into His Body and Blood.
LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O God, who with the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ,
has nourished us celebrating the feast of the blessed Apostle Peter,
grant, we beseech Thee,
that this sacred exchange of redemption
be for us a sacramental sign of unity and peace.
We chose from among those gifts of bread and wine, those concrete gifts which we offered at this particular Mass. They were a symbol of something from to be offered ourselves, to be returned to the one who gave them. God accepted them, and transformed them through His Spirit into the Body and Blood of Christ. Then gave them back to us, so that we, through them might be transformed more and more into what they are. This is an amazing interchange of gifts, God always having logical priority over the giving and the given. Thus, in the process, we are united to God and each other in a marvelous sacred “exchange”.
The current ICEL versions (biretta tip to HE):
Collect
Grant, we pray, almighty God,
that no tempests may disturb us,
for you have set us fast
on the rock of the Apostle Peter’s confession of faith.
Prayer over the Offerings
Accept with favor, O Lord, we pray,
the prayers and offerings of your Church,
that, with Saint Peter as her shepherd,
she may come to an eternal inheritance,
for it is through his teaching
that she holds the faith in its integrity.
Prayer after Communion
O God, who at our celebration
of the feast day of the blessed Apostle Peter
have nourished us by communion in the Body and Blood of Christ,
grant, we pray, that this redeeming exchange
may be for us a Sacrament of unity and peace.
As a bonus… here are a few photos of St. Peter’s shot some years ago on this Feast of the Cathedra of St. Peter.
It is pretty dark in the Basilica, so steady is the name of the game. Here is a shot through the columns over the main altar toward the apse, where you can see the candles arrayed around the magnificent bronze by Bernini.
A closer view.
The bronze Cathedra is decorated with lighted candles only once a year, today.
The black bronze statue of St. Peter attributed to the marvelous Arnulfo di Cambio was always dressed up in his cope and tiara, with a ring on his finger and pectoral Cross on two days, 29 June and today. Then the modernists in the Fabrica started fooling around. Too triumphalistic. They started cutting out elements. But all of them were back the day I shot these except for the griccia alb, which I can live without I guess. I don’t know if it is back this year or not.
And ….
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I was hoping in this post that you would mention the closing prayer of the NO Liturgy of the Hours:
“All-powerful Father,
you have built your Church on the rock of Saint Peter’s CONFESSION OF FAITH…”
Is this not a Protestant talking-point??? Christ established the Church on Peter HIMSELF who IS the rock! Not the “rock” of Peters’s confession! Who writes this stuff??
AutoLos,
It’s not either / or. The Church Fathers refer to both Peter himself, and his confession, as the rock upon which the Church was built. Both are true.
AutoLos: Who writes this stuff??
I think you can holster the exclamation points and question marks.
Here’s the “stuff”:
Let’s take a look. This prayer was in the 1962 Missale Romanum for the Vigil of Sts. Peter and Paul.
But wait. It was around for a while before that, too. Below is a page from the Echternach Sacramentary which dates to 895 AD. That’s quite a while before the Protestant Revolt.
This might be hard for you to read, but I had to study paleography. This is the text we have today.
Hence, could it be that there is something in your reading of the prayer that starts with an unfair point of suspicion? ??!!???!? Just messin’ with ya.
Remember, too, that this is not the only prayer that talks about Peter. There are other orations which flesh out the Church’s understanding of the Petrine Ministry. You can’t get everything into one prayer, and the genius of the ancient elements of the Roman Rite is that its prayers are concise.
Or Avignon.
I’m working on a paper to present next month which helps to solve, among other things, the Pope-Rome issue. It comes down to the existence of a category of law in the order of grace which is analogous to the ius gentium… Lay governance, rights over liturgy, episcopal deposition, and papal succession all seem to fit into this space… not just ecclesiastical law, but not quite Divine positive law either. It’s not been articulated before, as far as I know.
It would seem that all the Popes since Peter agree that the see of Rome is attached to Vicar of Christ since they all executed the Petrine ministry keeping the two together. There was no confusion, no ambiguity. All except for one, the current person occupying the see of Rome who has retired the title Vicar of Christ. Hmmmm….. what could that be about? Plus, the Pope before him seemed to say and do some confusing things to me about the nature of the office at the end of his time there but I won’t get into all that. Although, were the Avignon popes still Bishops of Rome?? They weren’t in Rome but were still Pope (some were antipopes) but I don’t think they discarded the title Bishop of Rome or got a helper Bishop to be the Bishop of Rome. Someone could educate me if I got that wrong. Sounds like from what you explained Vicar of Christ is the actual Petrine office given by Christ. So if the current occupier has rejected the title Vicar of Christ, where does that leave the Church? Do we have a Pope/Vicar of Christ? No Pope? 1/2 a Pope? Oy Vey!
Thank you for the added context. I still have my suspicions though. That we would ask God to keep us personally unshaken on the rock of Peter’s confession seems different than declaring that the Church Herself was established on the same.
Then of course there’s the timing. It just so happens that right when so many things in the Church were being changed that they just so happened to select a prayer which seems to give weight to the popular Protestant interpretation? I’ve just been made cynical I guess- can’t imagine why.
Also the traditional prayer for lauds today is just so fantastically rich, can’t see why it needed changing.
However, were we to consider the implications of Peter being Vicar of Christ before getting either to Antioch or Rome, one supposes that, in time of need, some Successor of Peter could move his see to, say, Texas.
Right: if, for example, Rome were completely destroyed and could not be rebuilt.
Although it is now obvious that the Avignon papacy was an aberration, it remains possible to speculate about how long the popes being absent from Rome would have run until some pope or other simply decided he wanted to change the situs of his see as the successor of Peter. Maybe it wouldn’t have occurred until Francis became the pope?
“… one supposes that, in time of need, some Successor of Peter could move his see to, say, Texas.”
Or, Avignon?
Of course, Clement V, John XXII and their successors to Gregory XI still held themselves to be Bishops of Rome though they resided in the territory loyal to the Kingdom of Naples.
Fr. Z and Fellow Readers,
Peter’s charge to office by Christ (Matthew 16: 16-19) did not name any physical location where he should be the “Rock” of Holy Mother Church. Wherever he was, he was speaking and acting with the keys and authority given to him by Christ.
Now, maybe in my simplistic theology I missed the core of this discussion, but what’s with all the extraneous verbage?
St. Peter made a confession of faith before Jesus declared him the rock of the Church. He asked Peter, “who do you say I am”.
Feast of St. Peter Damian, Doctor of the Church
I particularly like the Tract, set to haunting melody. Courtesy of the Institute of Christ the King, here: https://www.institute-christ-king.org/uploads/music/sanctorum/MassPeterChairAn_lg.pdf .
Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.
Nota Bene, St Patrick’s Cathedral, Bergoglio and his sodomfolk ilk everywhere in the clerical caste. Also see, The Book of Gomorrah, by Doctor of the Church St Peter Damian.
DeeEmm,
I think it’s a big stetch to say that the Pope has “rejected” the title Vicar of Christ. He dropped it from some documents…. He hasn’t formally repudiated it. It’s still in the Catechism. And he sure isn’t shy about exercising papal authority over all of the Church.
AutoLos:
Here is Pope Leo the Great making a similar point in a Sermon on his 3rd Anniversary, which serves as the source of 3 Lessons in Matins for the feast in question.
Thus saith the Lord unto Simon Peter: And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter. That is to say, Even as My Father hath revealed unto thee concerning Me that I am God, even so now will I also reveal unto thee that thou art Peter; I am the sure Rock of defence, the Corner Stone, Who make both one, (Eph. ii. 20, 15,) I am the Foundation, beside Which other can no man lay, 1 Cor. iii. 11, and thou also art a rock, in My Strength made hard, and those things whereof I by right am Lord, into thy hand do I give them, that thou mayst bear rule over them, for Me, and with Me. And upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Upon this strength of thine, whereof I am the Strength, I will build My eternal temple, and upon the truth of thy confession of Me I will make to rise My glorious Church whose spires shall pierce to heaven.