St Mary of Czestochowa Parish issued the following announcement on Aug. 23

This Sunday readings talk about the keys of the kingdom of God. The key is important. Whoever holds the key has a power. Whoever has the key has an authority. Today Jesus also gives keys. He gives the keys to the kingdom of heaven to Peter. What moves Jesus to give keys to this disciple? We already know Peter as someone who is rather quick and rash in his judgments. We know him to be of little faith. And after this handover when Jesus calls him Peter, we will hear how Jesus will call Peter a ‘Satan,’ a tempter, “Get behind me Satan.” You do not understand what being Messiah, being the Christ, really means. But, Jesus gives him the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Jesus acknowledges Peter because Peter has acknowledged Jesus. Peter, the son of Jonah, has recognized that Jesus is Son of God. Peter has recognized and named that this Son of Man, Jesus, is from heaven. Peter is seeing in this man Jesus that the Kingdom of heaven has now entered human history in the best and clearest way possible. 

The one standing before Jesus as he asks “Who do you say I am?” is saying in turn that you are from the living God, you are his Christ, active and ruling in our world. Peter is coming to the realization that heaven and earth have met in this man Jesus. What looked like two separate worlds has now come to be joined in this Son of the living God. What heaven looks like and feels like is being talked about by this Jesus; heaven’s power is now on earth. A door has been opened and worlds have met. The world of heaven and the world of earth are no longer strangers. We know about these worlds meeting and interacting now as one world because we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We pray that what God has begun in Jesus will continue. We acknowledge that heaven and earth are not meant to be two separate worlds but rather one world, one kingdom, of God. Jesus recognizes that what Peter has said about him, did not necessarily come from himself. Peter’s insight into Jesus and his origins is a gift from the Father in heaven. Peter has been touched in a deeply personal way by the Spirit from heaven. 

The Father in heaven has given Peter the gift to recognize Jesus as Son of the living God. Peter in himself has come to be a person where heaven and earth have come together. Jesus acknowledges this and calls Peter “blessed are you.” Peter is the only person in the gospels whom Jesus identifies as blessed. He is blessed because he has responded to the revelation of the Father in heaven. This recognition of Jesus and the blessing that flows from this is part of the mystery we remember and celebrate this day. Peter is given keys of the Kingdom of heaven. He has recognized in Jesus the image of the living God, his very son, the deepest possible relationship there can be with God. This opens up the whole storehouse, so to speak, of what the Kingdom is. In Peter, Jesus can be confident that his own message and work will continue. The community that gathers around the new world of heaven and earth together has a future in time. It is not Jesus who picks someone to be the stone on which the community is built. No, it is the Father who reveals a mystery to Peter and Jesus acknowledges the Father’s choice. 

His acknowledgment takes the form of building a community. And thus begins the process of our adoption as sons and daughters of the living God. Somewhere, sometime, in each of our lives like Peter we answered Jesus’ question. But are we now allowing Jesus to build with us his community on earth? The keys Jesus gives are special keys. They are keys to open the gates of life. Life is the power and authority they serve. We stand in that authority each time we build up life in another, each time we offer hope, each time we say we are with you, each time we open our mouths and confess a word that lifts up another. When we do that, we are a rock in the community called Church. Amen.

Original source can be found here.