Against The Gates of Hell

This is a computer-generated transcription that has been included to make the homily searchable.  It has not been verified by the author.

“You are Peter, and upon this rock, I will build My Church. And the gates of the nether world shall not prevail against it.” Jesus says, on this rock, I will build my Church. And right away He speaks of the conflict between the Church that He’s building and the powers of hell. And commenting on this phrase “on this rock”, in the Ignatius Bible Commentary that Scott Hahn and his collaborators wrote, “according to Jewish tradition, the foundation stone of the Jerusalem temple, capped off and sealed a long shaft leading down to the nether world, to hades.” The rock of the great foundation, so the temple capping off the shaft that led down to hades, to hell. And they said, they reference a passage from the book of Revelations, and I’ll read that passage. It says, “the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth. And he was given the key,” it says he, “he was given the key of the shaft of the bottomless pit,” the shaft of the bottomless pit, which sounds like it might be referring to the same thing. “And from the shaft rose smoke, like the smoke of a great furnace. And the sun and air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft. And from this smoke, there’s evil monstrous insects that come forth, to attack mankind.” And the Revelation says, “they have as king over them, the angel of the bottomless pit.”  So this is a mysterious passage, but it’s showing coming out of this, this shaft, which is maybe the shaft that the rock of the temple was supposed to seal, these all sorts of these evil spirits. And again, so it’s another image of this conflict between the Church and what comes from below. And speaking of the smoke, there’s a very interesting passage, a famous passage from Pope St. Pius, excuse me, Pope St. Paul the sixth. So he was the pope who presided over most of the Vatican II, the Council of Vatican two in the 1960s. And he concluded it, and then he presided over the implementation. And in 1972, so this was some years after the Second Vatican Council, he writes, speaking about the situation in the church today, he says, that he has a sense that from some fissure, the smoke of satan has entered the temple of God, from some fissure, the smoke of satan has entered the temple of God. He says, “there is doubt in certitude this quiet dissatisfaction, confrontation, there is no longer trust of the Church. Doubt has entered our consciences and it is entered by windows that should have been open to the light. This state of uncertainty, even hold sway in the Church. There was the belief that after the council, there will be a day of sunshine for the history of the Church. And instead, it is the arrival of a day of clouds, of tempest, of darkness, of uncertainty.” So he’s talking about after Vatican II, the Church after Vatican II, which is the Church that we’re living today, waiting for this, this great dawn in the sunshine, but having the smoke and not just any smoke, it says clearly a smoke of satan. So these are very strong words from the pope who presided over the Second Vatican Council and it was presided over what followed. Jesus promises that the gates of hell will not prevail over the Church that He founded. But he doesn’t say it might not seem for a time to prevail, just as satan seemed to triumph over Jesus Himself, and His suffering and death. And we are experiencing today, powerful, unrelenting attacks of this smoke that is pouring forth from below, this contaminated smoke of satan. And Jesus, to St. Peter at the Last Supper, Jesus said, another sign of this conflict. The attacks of satan, Jesus says, “Simon, Simon, behold, satan demanded to have you;” here He’s using you plural, so like we could say, like you all, “demanded to have you all, that he might sift you all like wheat.” So Jesus is very conscious at this moment of the attacks of satan against Peter and the apostles. And he says, but I have prayed for you and hear that you are a sinner, but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brother, because we know that St. Peter will fall, but then he’ll turn back. And then St. Peter, where he is here, he says, St. Peter says, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.” Jesus responds, “I tell you, Peter, the cock will not crow this day, until three times you deny that you know me.” So Peter was not yet conscious of how terrible this attack was gonna be. And how weak he was gonna be. Are we conscious of this attack? And it’s striking, in this very passage, where Jesus was right after this passage where Jesus says, You are Peter and on this rock, I will build My Church. The passage which immediately follows it in the Gospel, is when Jesus begins to tell them about what He is going to suffer. And that’s when Peter rebukes Jesus. And how does Jesus respond? I mean, what Peter is saying, Peter, what Peter’s saying, seems very compassionate. It seems like a loving thing to say, Lord, may that not happen to you. So well, yeah, Peter’s just being loving. He doesn’t want this to happen. But how does Jesus respond? “Get behind Me, satan. For you are not thinking as God but as man.” This human thinking, which seems compassionate, is actually from satan, because they would keep Jesus from what is truly compassionate, was truly merciful, which is the gift of His life to save souls from hell. And so satan’s, Peter, or Jesus called him satan, but Peters attitude, seemed very good, very humane, very compassionate. But Jesus said that that’s actually from satan. Because it’s false compassion. It would not permit God’s mercy to be poured out. So we see the struggle, right away in St. Peter, that the help that Jesus is giving him in his own weakness, and what about the successors of St. Peter? And I was remembering when, after St. John Paul died, so it was before that the following election, and they were interviewing, Cardinal Ratzinger, and they said, Well, can we have confidence that the Pope’s always chosen by the Holy Spirit? And Cardinal Ratzinger who would of course go on to be elected Pope Benedict the 16^th, he said, there are too many contrary instances, the Pope’s the Holy Spirit, obviously would not have picked, obviously, would not have picked. That is we say no, we can’t be sure.   We’re actually saying more than are you saying? There are certainly Pope’s that the Holy Spirit would not have picked and so in the number that I think and 60 some Pope’s that we’ve had, there have been we’ve had a number of great saints and even in recent centuries we’ve had a number of great saints and exceptional Pope’s, there have been other Pope’s in history who have been mediocre. And there have been some popes who are very bad, scandalously bad. And especially when the papacy becomes powerful and influential, then there’s more and more the danger for it to be used in a corrupt way. Because the greatest danger for the Church is not the danger which comes from the outside, but it’s the danger which comes within, to infiltrate, penetrate and contaminate. For the church, and from the very beginning, right, but from Judas Iscariot from the first apostles, and it’s striking in the gospels, and the New Testament, they’re constantly throughout the New Testament, they’re constantly calling the members of the Church, especially the pastors, to be on guard, against evil, heresies, and divisions penetrating in the Church, constantly the need to be on guard. And we’ve had terrible tragedies, terrible series of scandals and abuses, in our times, and even very recently.  And one of the most high profile was when Archbishop Vigano denounced one of the most influential, probably the most influential Cardinal in our country, and one of most in the Church, Cardinal McCarrick, who has now been reduced to at laity because of the terrible abuses he was committing. But of course, this is at very high levels.  And then when our Lady appeared at La Salette in France, in the 19th century, in the controversial message, secret that she gave. She said Rome will lose the faith and become the seed of the antichrist, strong words. So what is the solution in this conflict, that the Church finds itself? So it’s very important to be aware and alert. And this gospel also gives us a great light. When Jesus asked, Who do people say that I am? And of course, they give all the opinions, all the people opinions that people gave for wrong. And today, people might say, well, Jesus is a very good man. He’s a prophet, he’s an important religious leader. Some would say he’s a myth, but a very good myth maybe, but just a myth. But St. Peter, response, “you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And then, and Jesus says, you are rock and on this rock, I will build my church. But St. Peter later on, well listen to what St. Peter will later on saying this is in the Acts of the Apostles, when the time Peter, you can’t say the name of Jesus, the authorities, the Jewish authorities are saying that is in Acts. He says, “by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth is this man standing before you? This is the stone.” So you’re saying, Jesus is the stone. So this is Peter, who Jesus called the rock and Peter’s saying, “Jesus is the stone, which was rejected by you, the builders, but which has become the cornerstone, and there is salvation and no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” So Peter’s proclaiming that Jesus is the rock, the cornerstone. And St. Paul will say this also to the Ephesians, he says, so he’s talking to all of us, he says, “so you are no longer strangers and sojourners. But you are fellow citizens with the saints, and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles.” So Peter and the other apostles, built upon the fact, excuse me, says “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself, being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together, and grows into a holy temple in the Lord, and whom you also are built into it for dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” So Peter and Paul are saying, Jesus is the cornerstone. St. Paul at another point says, “the supernatural rock is Christ, for no other foundation, can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” And we think of King David in the Psalm 18, who says, The Lord is my rock. And so Jesus is the cornerstone. And Peter, by his union of faith in Jesus makes him capable of being the rock, but all as relative to Jesus. That’s what the Cornerstone is, it’s a stone which is placed so all the rest of the foundation is measured from that cornerstone. So the cornerstone is the guide to rule for everything else. And so that’s why Jesus is so attacked today, the faith in Him and His Jesus and his mystical body of the Church. So attacks, trying to sideline Jesus to make him irrelevant or condemn Him because of the faults of Christians. And so the key for every time when we see, sadly, you know, we priest and other pastors of the Church and we’re all sinners like, the same like Peter, before he was a saint, we’re all sinners. And so sometimes we fail, and sometimes we fail terribly. So your faith is not in us. But it’s in Jesus, because we can fail. Jesus is the one who will not fail. So whenever we hear scandals and abuses, it reminds us our faith is not in the human members of the Church. It’s in Jesus Christ. And where does that faith come from? So Jesus says in the Gospel today, “Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh, and blood has not revealed this to you.” Flesh and blood, it means it’s not human capacities. So human studies and human efforts are good, they can be good, they can be good, they can be helpful. But that is not sufficient to have faith in Jesus. He said, so it’s not flesh and blood. It’s not a human abilities, he says, “but my heavenly Father,” it’s a gift of God, this faith that Peter has, is a gift that comes from God. It’s not something that’s humanly attainable, it’s a gift from God, received by the Holy Spirit. And so it’s this simple faith in Jesus Christ, which is the barrier against hell. And it’s not necessarily the ones who have made most studies, who have the most degrees, as we see very clearly in the Gospel, it’s often the very simple people who trust in Jesus, who are the strongest against the attacks and the confusions, the smoke of satan. And so to conclude, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And especially we’re in this time in which as Paul St. Paul, the Sixth said, the smoke of satan has been poured out in the Church too, that what he’s saying very clearly in the Church, this poisonous presence of the evil spirit. And as I mentioned that there’s terrible scandals that have come up, we’re hearing a lot more scandals today, there’s this upcoming Synod, this important Synod, which is coming up in October, the first stage of the Synod. And there’s a lot of people who are wanting to use the Synod to change the doctrine and the morality in the Church. And there are people in high positions. And they’re saying that open and not hiding it. They’re saying, this is what we need to do. And so this smoke of satan is very present. We have to be aware, we can’t pretend that everything is safe. St. Paul, the sixth would have loved to say everything has gone wonderfully since the council, but he said no, there’s a smoke of satan, which is penetrated. And that’s what Jesus from the beginning, from the beginning, He’s telling Peter, this conflict that he’s gonna have to be facing. And right away, and the conflict is not just outside of Peter. It’s in Peter, we see Peter struggling. And again, I mentioned right after Jesus gives him this, Jesus says, Get behind Me, satan. Because when you begin to think as men think, then you can become a tool of satan. And that can happen to the pastors of the Church. And it happens often, it’s a struggle, a struggle, we’re always struggling with. So who is, that’s the question Jesus is asking, Who do you say that I am. And so we have to be not following human opinions with which are so manipulated by satan. But the Holy Spirit that the Father sent, teaching the faith, which has been the faith from the beginning, the same faith, that rock hasn’t changed, the cornerstone hasn’t changed. If you change the cornerstone, the whole building collapses, the cornerstone has not changed. The cornerstone is faith in Jesus Christ, the only son of God, our only Savior, the One Way, Truth and Life. And so the reason that we gather for this Mass every Sunday is to strengthen our faith in Jesus Christ, to come back to the cornerstone, so that we can be built on the cornerstone, otherwise we’re gonna fall apart, we’re going to be like stones, which get dislodged and just fall apart and that’s oftentimes that what seems to be happening in the Church when we lose faith in Jesus Christ, the walls begin to crumble. So with our Blessed Mother, the greatest example, constant example of faith in Jesus Christ, the one who crushed the head of the serpent. And so with our Blessed Mother, we pray in this Mass as we prepare to receive our Lord Jesus Christ in Holy Communion. We pray, My Lord and my God, Jesus, we trust in You. Amen.

KEYWORDS / PHRASES:
Matthew 16:13-20
Cornerstone
Rock