He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter said in reply,
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.
For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
Even before the Lord God created Eve he commissioned Adam to begin naming things, especially the animals. We have continued to do so, from animals and plants on Earth to the stars, planets, and galaxies of the universe; along with categories for all those creatures and maps for where they belong.
Names are like definitions for us; they indicate our relationship to those we name. But they're never complete because only God knows the essence of anything, which is far beyond category, location, and usefulness. Periodically we forget that, and think we know something, as if we have mastery of ourselves and everything around us.
In today's Gospel, Jesus asked how people named him; and then he asked his disciples the same question. Peter's answer revealed an astonishing wisdom. The "Father of Jesus" had been speaking in the silence of his heart and he knew more about Jesus than he thought he knew. That knowledge gave him authority and Jesus honored it. He would be the rock upon which he builds his Church,
It was certainly not the authority of the Christ, but it was a kind of authority about who the Christ is for the other disciples and for the world. As pope, Saint Peter would be the first among equals, and his authority would grow as he grew in wisdom. John 21 and the Acts of the Apostles describe that growth. His wisdom and authority were gifts of enormous authority to the Church during those first critical days when it might have shattered into futile divisiveness.
Because he spoke with the authority of the Holy Spirit, and because the same Spirit in the Church honors him, the Church stands today, with his successor, Pope Leo XIV.
