June 29, 2019
Saint Francis Xavier Catholic Church
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Acts 12:1-11
Psalm 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9
2 Timothy 4:6-8, 17-18
Matthew 16:13-19
The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth possesses in its collection a painting by Nicolas Poussin. The painting depicts the very scene described in our Gospel reading from this Solemnity; Christ entrusts the keys of the Kingdom to Peter. It is entitled The Sacrament of Ordination; it is one of a series of seven paintings by Poussin depicting the sacraments produced. The artist presents this scene from the Gospel as representing Peter’s ordination by Christ. Honestly, upon initially viewing this beautiful work of art, I must state that I was puzzled over the choice of this passage of Scripture to present the Sacrament of Holy Orders. If I were able to draw or paint beyond stick figures, I would have selected the Call of the Apostles, or perhaps the Last Supper, or the Washing of Feet to represent Holy Orders — not the entrusting of the keys to Peter.
Yet in a very profound way, Christ’s entrusting to Peter the keys of the Kingdom is what the Sacrament of Holy Orders brings about — order out of chaos. Just as God created the ordered Universe and all within it out of the primordial chaos of nothingness, and sin brought about disorder through abuse of all that is good, thus Christ restores order (beyond that of the original order of creation) sacramentally through the ministry of His priests in the pastoral care of His people — as priests govern, teach, and sanctify in communion with their bishop and the Successor of Saint Peter, the Pope.
Through the priesthood of the baptized, each one of us shares in the Cross. Saints Peter and Paul shared in the Cross of Jesus; Peter in a very particular way. By his ordination yesterday and his ministry to come, Father David Carvajal will share intimately in the Cross through Christ’s priestly sacrifice of atonement and reconciliation whenever he administers each of the sacraments, most especially the Eucharist and Penance. It is this sacrificial aspect of Father David’s life as a priest that enables him to lead the People of God, the New Israel, from slavery to selfishness and sin towards the freedom of the baptized. It is this sacrificial aspect that motivates a priest to go to the peripheries of society to reach those who otherwise would collapse in fear and confusion. It is this sacrificial aspect of a priest’s life that illuminates a priest with the truth of the Gospel to enlighten those lost in the fog of error. It is this sacrificial aspect that empowers a priest to shepherd people away from the walled-off isolation experienced as part of a mob of individuals towards the Communion offered and shared that makes us the Church, Christ’s Body. As Bishop Konderla spoke to Father David during the Rite of Ordination: “Understand what you do, imitate what you celebrate, and conform your life to the mystery of the Lord’s Cross.”
The keys of Saint Peter are often depicted as being crossed. This is intentional to reveal that the offices of teaching, sanctifying, and governance through servant leadership are fused together in the sacrifice of the Cross as the source of Christ’s bringing about the order of redemption through Faith, Hope, and Charity. The prayer of ordination refers to the 70 wise men that God raised up to assist Moses in governing and bringing His chosen people, Israel, from being a crowd of refugees fleeing slavery to freedom in the promised land. Moses is following the Lord, leading the Lord’s own people through the wilderness, a journey towards the land that has been promised to them, a journey that requires discernment and confident faith in the Lord God. It is in this journey that they have begun as refugees from slavery that they are to become a pilgrim people — God’s chosen and pilgrim people — through faithful trust in God and in God’s chosen agent, Moses.
Moses is asking the Lord for help because he needs it. He recognizes that there are an increasing number of the people who are abandoning their identity as God’s Chosen People, made so by His Covenant with them, and instead turning back in fear to a life of slavery and idolatry. They risk losing their identity as one people — God’s one chosen people. They risk dissipating into an angry mob of individuals, lonely, with no meaning to their lives except the slavery of fear driving them into selfishness and idolatry, tempted to return to Egypt.
As a part of His redeeming work of bringing about order from the chaos of sin, the Lord answers Moses. The Lord raises up 70 wise men. They aren’t wise in education, they aren’t wise in experience, they aren’t wise in technical skills — they are wise in the willingness to trust the Lord and in so doing they receive the grace of God in a portion of His Spirit that He has already given to Moses. These elders are to serve as bridges between the people and God. They are to serve as bridges among the people with each other, uniting them in the mission of the pilgrimage to true and lasting freedom in God, when fear would otherwise drive them apart and surround them with the slavery of self-imposed walls of isolation and disordered self-centeredness.
The movement from chaos to order is too large of a leap for human beings to make in their fallen condition. The movement from slavery to freedom is too large a leap for human beings to make in their fallen condition. The movement from possession by idols to belonging to the Lord is too large of a leap for human beings to make in their fallen condition. The movement requires bridges to pass over into the Promised Land. These chosen elders are bridges and they prefigure priests and their ordained ministry in the life of the Church. A priest is a bridge, a pontifex. As Pope Benedict XVI wrote, “No man on his own, relying on his own power, can put another in touch with God. An essential part of the priest’s grace is the gift, the task of creating this contact…As an act of God’s infinite mercy, he calls some ‘to be’ with Him and to become, through the sacrament of Orders, despite their human poverty, sharers in His own priesthood, ministers of sanctification, stewards of His mysteries, ‘bridges’ to the encounter with Him and of His mediation between God and man and between man and God.”
The vocation and sacramental ministry of a priest requires that he be a bridge — a pontifex like Peter and Paul — in bridging the experience of isolation and loss of identity for so many people today, inside and outside of the Church, into the sense of belonging that God has chosen to give His People through their life and Communion as His Church.
The marrow of Father David’s being a bridge as a priest is anchored in the conversation that Christ initiated with Father David when he first heard Christ’s call to follow Him and when he said “yes” to Christ. Father David’s life, like that of every priest, is an ongoing conversation of prayer that always concludes with the priest saying “yes” to Christ in his ministry. This conversation between Christ and Father David as a priest might be better understood in the light of the conversation between Jesus and Peter that is revealed to us in today’s Gospel. The conversation in the Gospel today is only part of an ongoing conversation that began with Christ’s first call to Peter to follow Him. The conversation intensified when Christ gave Peter the keys of binding and loosing as we hear in today’s Gospel. The conversation continued at the Last Supper with the washing of Peter’s feet and his promised fidelity that ends in futility. The conversation quiets at Calvary. The conversation echoes through the empty tomb, picks up again when Peter is redeemed and confesses his love for Christ three times, and is manifested again in Peter’s witness before Herod as presented in today’s first reading, and culminates in Peter’s martyrdom, the sacrifice and death for love.
Father David’s conversation began with his listening to Christ in prayer. It continued through his listening and saying “yes” through many conversations in seminary formation in college and in his theological formation; it continued in the conversation between him and his bishop in the promises of his ordination to diaconate and to priesthood; and it will continue in his daily prayer life and sacramental and pastoral ministry as a priest for the salvation of the People of God entrusted to his love; it will culminate when the Lord concludes the conversation by calling Father David home and may he hear the Lord say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Finally, it is important to note that in today’s Gospel passage from Matthew, Peter is addressed as Simon bar Jonah. The name “Simon” is derivative of the Hebrew word “shema” which means, “to listen.” As Saint Paul reminds us, “Faith comes through listening.” The point is that the Church, and priests and bishops who are entrusted with authoritative offices in service to Her, are called to listen first and so to recognize that the authority is indeed entrusted to them and belongs to Christ. It also means that all conversion is a gradual endeavor that marks God’s Kingdom. Patient perseverance must characterize our priestly vocation and pastoral ministry in accompanying His people towards the Promised Land of the New Jerusalem.
The gift of rightly ordered authority by Christ to His Church underscores the need for rightly ordered servants who can only become so through the honest simplicity of faith, courageous hope, and just and merciful charity. There is no lasting hope or legitimate charity without first entering through the door of faith. This simplicity of faith begins with listening; it then responds to the heard Word with perseverant service to those most in need.
The Master sends us to those who are most in need, those whom we need to save from the chaos of sin and disordered selfishness and to admit them with His keys into His Kingdom and Household, the Church. They are Christ’s keys and they remain Christ’s keys even as they are entrusted to your priestly ministry through faith. The Church and I repeat the words that Bishop Konderla spoke to you on Friday, the words that every priest has had addressed to him on his ordination day, Father David Carvajal, “Believe what you read, teach what you believe, and practice what you teach.”
