Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia, which translates to "Where Peter is, there is the Church”…..Don’t fool yourself….The “Ark of Peter” may “take on water” but it cannot sink - So stay in the boat!

Today at Holy Mass we hear in the first reading in the Acts of the Apostles that a great disagreement was dividing the early Church…The question at hand was…Can gentiles be baptized?…Remember, all of the first Catholics were Jews and in Jewish tradition, gentiles were “unclean”…..So what did the people do? - They went to Peter, the first Pope - And Peter, also being a Jew was hesitant to allow gentiles to be baptized…However, and this is the important part - Peter was humble and when he heard in prayer that he should permit gentiles to be baptized, he followed what the Holy Spirit told him to do, even when it seemed at first to go against his “better judgement”…..”The Spirit told me to accompany them without discriminating”…..There is a lot here to reflect upon…For one - God’s ways are not our ways - We need to learn to trust God more!..... Second - St Peter was the first Pope and God works through his Church….There is a special grace that comes with being the Pope….That does not mean everything the Pope does is perfect, but what it does mean is, God’s hand is steering the Church through the Pope…Even if the road twists and turns a bit - God will work through it all….This is why we must be obedient to the Pope….There is that dirty word Americans do not like to hear - “Obedient”….Think about the decision St Peter just made…Allowing gentiles to be baptized…This went against everything the Jewish people were taught for centuries….This is a huge decision and a huge change to the first Catholics, who were all for the most part former Jews - And they listened to Peter - And in time what Peter decided proved to be the right decision…God’s ways are not our ways - We must learn to trust more! - God works through his Church and the Pope……"Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia”, which translates to "Where Peter is, there is the Church."

“I am the good shepherd, says the Lord; I know my sheep, and mine know me”

I can remember when I was in college, I thought I knew everything….I can remember my father not saying much but just watching me with concern as I made mistake after mistake……A father, as we all know has lived life and has experienced many more things then his 19 year old son…Yet the son “thinks” he knows more than the father….We see something similar today play out in the Catholic Church with many of the laity in the pews around the world…..People seem to forget that the Catholic Church has been around for 2000 years…It outlasted the Roman persecution, which by the way lasted for 300 years!…..It out lasted countless dictators, tyrants and empires, all of which tried their very best to destroy it - And they all failed!….And somehow we “think” we know better than the Pope and what the Church teaches!……Jesus Christ told St Peter from the beginning something we must ALWAYS keep in the forefront of our mind……”And so 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”……The Church CANNOT be destroyed because God’s hand is upon it - Get that through your head! - And God works in and through the Pope - Even through the Pope’s human mistakes - Remember, the Pope is a man and makes mistakes as all men do…….With all that being said - We must learn to trust more!….To have the faith of a child…..There is a famous story that came out of the 18th century…..Cardinal Errol Consalvi, who was Pope Pius VII’s Secretary of State told Napoleon the following when he threatened to destroy the Church….."You will not succeed, your majesty. Not even we priests, bishops and cardinals have been able to do that”…….There will some times be events and decisions that happen in the Church that we may not fully understand…There may be bad prelates…Even mistakes made by Popes who are human just like the rest of us…Through it all…God is working and God is guiding the Church!…Its for us to learn to trust and know that evil will NEVER prevail….So what is the moral of my little story…Stay in the “boat”!…Trust the Pope - He is a chosen instrument of God…..Don’t make the mistake of Napoleon and many others in history who “thought” they can destroy what can not be destroyed!

“Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever does not enter a sheepfold through the gate but climbs over elsewhere is a thief and a robber. But whoever enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice, as the shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”

Today we hear at Mass how St Peter, the first Pope made a huge decision…...To allow gentiles to be baptized…..As we all know, time has “20/20 vision” and with that said, the decision that St Peter made was validated in time…But when he made this decision, many had “problems” with it…We must all learn from this example, as well as from so many more instances that took place throughout 2000 years of history when the Pope's of the past have made similar decisions in times of conflict and division, that God’s hand was guiding the direction of the Church and even when mistakes that may have been made, were always corrected in time also by the hand of God….Its for us to learn to trust more and have peace of mind knowing that God knows what he is doing!….I will always be a faithful son of the Church - I don’t have to “understand everything”…But one thing I do understand….”You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it”…..If you care to read 2000 years of history and are objective…You will find that what I just wrote proves to this day to be true!….Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia, which translates to "Where Peter is, there is the Church”…..Don’t fool yourself….The “Ark of Peter” may “take on water” but it cannot sink - So stay in the boat!