Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXI per Annum A
23 August 2026

 Today we hear beautiful words from the psalm response that speak to us of the heart of our life and relationship with God.  “Lord, your love is eternal.”  So complete and perfect is God’s love that it endures, not just for a really long time, but rather it is eternal.  It is outside of time.  It is not only in the past, as if God’s love is over.  It is not only something we still await in the future.  No, God’s love is ever-present and always now.  “God is love” as the Letter of St. John says (cf. 1 Jn. 4:8).

That we experience this love is the heart of our spiritual life.  But how do we experience this love?  One important lesson to take from the whole of Scripture is that God has not been absent from history.  He did not create the world and then simply sit back and observe in disinterest.  Time and again God has made His presence known.  He has used events of human history to speak to us.  He has mediated His love through people and events.  His love was made known to our first parents in the Garden.  His love was expressed to Abraham.  He called together and formed a people out of love by the work of people like Moses, the prophets, and the Davidic kings.  And, in the fullness of time, God Himself entered human history by the incarnation where God the Son took on our human flesh and was revealed as Jesus. This work by people called to help bring God’s love to the world continues in the Church established by Jesus Christ, who is the love of God made visible.  The Good News presented to us by the Scriptures this weekend is that God’s love is meant for each person in every time and place and so, in a special way, God has formed an ongoing succession of those who minister God’s own authority and who are called to be like fathers to God’s beloved children.

 We see the roots of this ongoing succession in the first reading.  That first reading showed us the establishment of the office of master of the palace in the kingdom of King David.  That position was made to help extend the authority, fatherhood, and leadership of King David to the entire kingdom.  And that position was to be filled in an ongoing line of succession, from one master of the palace to the next.  The reading from Isaiah described the master of the palace: “He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah.  I will place the key of the House of David on [his] shoulder; when he opens, no one shall shut, when he shuts, no one shall open.  I will fix him like a peg in a sure spot, to be a place of honor for his family.”

And thus, Jesus’ words to Peter in the gospel do not stand in isolation as some sort of bizarre fiction or some human creation invented by the Catholic Church to grasp political power.  Listen to those words of Jesus to Peter and you know that Isaiah’s words from the first reading are the very foundation of the office and role Peter was given, an office and a role his successors continue to occupy: “I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.  I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.  Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  It is no wonder, then, that we consider these words of Christ to be the foundation of our understanding of the papacy, that ongoing office and role whereby God’s love is mediated to us, whereby authority is exercised in Jesus’ kingdom, an office that is a sure and stable peg for us, put in a place of honor, and fulfilled by one who is like a father to us.  No surprise that the very term “pope” comes from “papa” meaning “father”.

The very roots of today’s Gospel selection are from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah chapter 22. And so it is with good reason that the Church chooses that passage from Isaiah to be the first reading today. Jesus establishes and ensures leadership and authority in his Church in every time and place through the office of Peter and by his ministry, and the Petrine ministry of his successors. This Gospel selection should cause some deep reflection among two groups I want to highlight. First, non-catholics often adopt ideas and arguments that create workarounds for the obvious and clear meaning of this Gospel passage. They don’t want to accept the papacy. They have a centuries-long bias against the papacy, and so they argue that Jesus meant his words only spiritually, as if to mean symbolically. Or they claim that Peter himself is not the rock, that some other foundation is being indicated. Or they claim that Peter was not given unique authority, but rather Jesus was giving authority to the whole Church. These ideas don’t withstand scrutiny and don’t stand up to the obvious meaning of the Gospel, nor the clear foreshadowing of the meaning from centuries before in the reading from Isaiah. The second group that needs deep reflection on this passage may surprise you: It is we ourselves; it is Catholics. We are familiar with this passage and Catholics tends to point to the first part of the selection where Jesus says “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church”. But Jesus says more than that. He goes on to give real authority to Peter, giving him the keys to the Kingdom and saying that heaven itself will ratify what Peter binds and what Peter looses. This means there is a real authority, a divine authority (because it comes from Jesus), a binding authority that has been given to the office of Peter and which is exercised by Peter and his successors. Why do I say this passage needs deep reflection by Catholics too? Because we live in a time where authority and institutions are viewed with suspicion. Credibility and trust in institutions of all kinds is at historic lows. There are many legitimate reasons why such trust is low and we should face those honestly. But that does not change the reality of the authority given to the papacy. Put this lesson in a family context: it doesn’t matter whether you like your father or not; he is your father and he has authority. He may be a good man. He may be a morally bad man. He may be easy to follow. He may have character flaws or a temper and seem like a tyrant. None of that, the good or the bad, changes the fact of the authority he has. It’s the same with the papacy. Throughout history there have been popes that are easier to like and those that are not. That does not result in any legitimate question about whether he is or is not the pope. Catholics need to reflect upon and remember the real and binding authority of the papacy. This too is as necessary as it is for non-catholics to recognize the reality of the papacy. Our own time provides examples of Catholic groups who come up with reasons and excuses for why they say they can defy the pope’s teachings and decisions. These ideas and arguments also do not stand up to scrutiny and they defy the obvious meaning of the Gospel and the clear foreshadowing of the meaning from centuries before in the reading from Isaiah. No matter what feelings arise in us about any one pope, it would be better if we simply prayed for our Holy Father.

Today’s psalm expresses triumphant joy and thanksgiving.  And that note is continued in the gospel where the Heavenly Father reveals the mystery of His kingdom to Peter.  Jesus is the anointed son promised to David; the one whose kingship never ends and whose kingdom is everlasting.  What Jesus calls “my church” is this very kingdom on earth.  And just as Isaiah foretold the keys to the kingdom would be given to a new master of the palace, so in Peter and his successors do we see this fatherly role exercised for the whole kingdom of the Church. We want to remain firm in this Kingdom under the guidance of the Pope. For it is in the unity of the Church that we can experience most fully what the psalm states: “Lord, your love is eternal!”