Taking a break from finalization of my thesis project this afternoon, I remembered that the Papal mass is in progress in Yankee stadium, and decided to tune in. Pope Benedict was in the middle of his homily, with the crowd breaking in and cheering as he spoke.
As I watched Pope Benedict’s mass, I could sense the outpouring of joy in the stadium, the sheer joy and excitement of being there with the Pope in person. It came right through my monitor screen. As the people cheered, my eyes began to tear up, and I began to feel that inexplicable something that I’ve felt ever since I entered the Church: a cool, bright feeling, like light streaming through diamonds, light streaming through me and through the room, through the Pope and through all the people in the Church the world over. This was not just a crowd, a stadium, a group of people collected somewhere in the world.
I cried harder. This was the One Same Body of Christ with whom I am intimately bound as one. This is my Body, a body that unbreakably encompasses all baptized and confirmed believers everywhere, throughout the world, throughout time, into heaven and eternity. It was as if I was actually there – and I could feel, in the cool bonds of light streaming through me, that we are truly one, unbreakably, undividedly one.
Then I thought about Peter, as I watched Pope Benedict, the successor to Peter. I saw Peter, big clumsy fallible Peter, who sank beneath the waves and was pulled up by the Lord’s strong hand, who tried to correct the Lord and was rebuked by Him, who pulled his sword to strike only to be told by the Lord to put his sword back in its place, who promised to stand by the Lord but who denied Him three times, Peter broken to helpless sobbing on the eve of His Lord’s death. I began to sob uncontrollably.
And I saw this same Peter named the Rock, given power to bind and loose, given power to forgive sins, told to feed the Lord’s flock, given the gifts of powerful preaching and healing at Pentecost, this same Peter who at the end of his life was crucified upside down, because he didn’t feel worthy to be crucified right-side up, as his Lord was.
And sobbing, I realized: Peter is still with us. Peter lives, as surely as does Christ our Lord, has remained with us from that day to this, as surely as does our Lord, by the power of our Lord. Peter is with us, the Rock laid by Christ on which Christ is building His Church, and on which we are all solidly joined as one.
My tears dried. Peter, and the Apostles, and Mary, and all the saints, we all remain. Those who have gone before us are still with us. We are one Body, and the Lord has given us form and structure that remains, and endures. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and the Church is His Body, and so the Church, though growing, is also the same yesterday, today, and forever, even as a person is the same body with the same structure growing from infancy to adulthood. We are the same today as we were in the beginning, and Peter is still our head, very much present in Benedict XVI today, and in every Pope throughout history. And like Peter, every Pope is a clumsy, fallible man, yet empowered by Christ to conduct his office – it is truly Christ who conducts His Office in and through the Pope, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
I’ve never attended a Papal mass, have never met a Pope in person, though I hope to someday. But today, I feel that I have attended a Papal mass, by watching Pope Benedict’s mass in Yankee stadium, because I am inseparably bound as one with him, and with our whole Body, in and through Christ our Lord.
