UNMOVABLE ROCK

BY REV. MR. MATTHEW PROSPERIE REFLECTION

On The Priesthood

that the needle has not already been crushed. And so, what do we find there, holding up this mountain? And why is it so small? The wind of false doctrine could not blow down the mountain, but the sea has been battering its shores all around. The waves have eroded the foundation; yet the mountain stands. It stands upon a slender rock, needle thin, diamond strong, the rock of faith—the faith of mothers and fathers, and their children; the faith held like the beads of a rosary, passed from finger to finger, and its words, lisped from lips nearly too young to speak, halting and unsure of the words, but somehow the surer of their meaning; the faith still sung in eloquence of voice and music, in lungs which have not tired, which have not wearied, because they sing something as strange as the world could hope for: A redeemed relationship with God, who is their rock, their peter, their priest.

“the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” But the fact that it will not fall does not mean we can be complacent. For many see the church, like Christ on the cross, and say: “There is no future for them; let us tear down this mountain.” Our faith knows something different, but it must say what it knows! And so those of us who are tasked with proclaiming the faith, which is all of us, since we are all a priestly people (although we exercise that priesthood in different ways in the church and in the world), ought to be concerned with building up the soil at the base of this mountain, lest people be kept from God.

So how do we do that? We must understand that the Church is not a magical floating mountain, which exists apart from human cooperation; that unmovable rock is Peter, a person, the martyr, who died testifying to Jesus, and upon whom Christ said he would build his Church. Yet Peter’s faith cannot simply be proclaimed; it must be lived.