THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM

 A REFLECTION FOR THE FEAST OF ST. PETER AD VINCULA

The Proper Last Gospel of today’s Mass describes the promise made to St. Peter that it would be upon him that Christ would establish and build his Church.  The One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church of Christ would be founded on the leader of the Twelve Apostles, and would be based in the City of which he would become the first Bishop, and in which he would die on his own Cross of Martyrdom.

Along with this pledge came another.  It comes from the mouth of our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and cannot be doubted.  He promised St. Peter that the gates of hell shall not prevail against this Church.  They shall not prevail because the Church is built on a rock—the name of Peter, Petrus in Latin, means “Rock”, and so anything built upon it would surely withstand any onslaught of the Devil.  Today, we may be tempted to doubt this promise.  After all, to any casual glance by any faithful Catholic, Rome seems to have lost the faith altogether.  The gates of hell appear to have prevailed quite entirely over our beloved Church.

Let’s not forget that appearances can be deceitful.  The faith is actually alive and well, in spite of (and possibly because of) the never-ending attacks against it.  Look at the latest assault against our Mass by St. Peter’s “apparent” successor.  Look at the backlash it has unleashed in favor of the traditional Mass, even in the tainted halls of the Novus Ordo Church.  More and more are seeing through the façade of modernism and reacting against it.  And even if they are silenced, the voices of the Church Militant will still cry out to heaven in the prayers of the faithful.

To the Church, our blessed Lord gave the keys to the kingdom of heaven.  Of what use are keys except to lock and unlock.  The chains that are being piled on faithful Catholics by the modernist Church have a lock, and if we are members of the Church then we have a right to use the keys that Christ gave to the Church.  We have the power to unlock the chains with which the children of darkness seek to bind us.  And we have the duty to use that power.  It is a power that comes to us from the Truth— the Truth that comes from God!  Because of this Truth, coupled with the prayers of intercession we ask our Blessed Mother to make on our behalf, there is literally nothing that the children of darkness can do to destroy our faith or our Church. 

Whatsoever we shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever we shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.  Believe this!  Have faith, the kind of faith that moves mountains, and our Church, our nation, our families will not only survive but prosper through the powerless onslaughts of a Devil whose head is already crushed beneath the heel of our Lord’s most blessed Mother.