The Turning Stone

     My new local monastery is called the Abbaye Sainte-Marie de la Pierre qui Vire. The "Pierre" in the name has nothing to do with St. Peter, it's a literal stone at the site of the monastery. It's a boulder balanced on top of another boulder in such a way that it can be turned around by hand ("pierre qui vire" means "turning stone"). That's the old story, anyway. Such instability made the first monks there so uncomfortable that the turning stone was cemented to the boulder beneath, and a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary fixed firmly on top. They kept the name, though, even when the stone no longer turned. 

    There is something in common with St. Peter after all. Jesus gave him the name, which means "rock," as related in Matthew's gospel: 

When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, ... “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. 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.” (Matt. 16:13-19)

    But Peter, too, like the turning stone at my local abbey, was a really unstable rock. He was so wobbly, it only takes five verses from "you are Peter, and on this Rock I will build my Church," for him to screw up so badly that Jesus turned and told him, "Get thee behind me, Satan!" Oh, no, Peter was no solid rock.

    He was impulsive. He was impetuous. He was volatile. He was not sensible. He got all excited seeing Jesus walk on water, forgot he couldn't swim! jumped in with him and needed to be rescued. He constantly spoke and acted without thinking. He swore he would go to his death before denying Jesus, and a few hours later, as vehemently swore that he'd never seen the man before. He was unreliable: when Jesus kept begging him to keep vigil with him, in the garden at Gethsemane the night of his arrest, Peter fell asleep over and over. He must have drunk deeply from the ritual four cups of wine at that Last Supper! And then, he met the arresting mob by drawing a sword and flailing away with it until he sliced off the sword hand ear of the armed guard high priest's servant. And do you think the Resurrection and Ascension and Pentecost, the descent of the Holy Spirit, firmed him up? No. Paul called Peter out as a hypocrite, with some justice, for not wanting the orthodox Jewish Christians to know that when they weren't around, he'd been sharing unkosher meals with uncircumcised converts. 

    Seriously, Saint Peter was a hot mess. As a Rock, he had all the firmness of a bog or a sand dune. What could Jesus have been thinking, to single out this overexcitable, undisciplined, imprudent creature as a Rock on which to build his church? What was it he said, in that gospel passage quoted above? "For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father." That is the basis, that is the solid rock foundation on which to build a church. Peter has faith, faith that trumps human reason, that discerns something beyond what his "flesh and blood" senses can perceive. And he is, simply, sure of what he knows through faith.

    And yet, the successors of St. Peter (the popes, cardinals, bishops) through the ages have preferred to do like last century's monks at La Pierre Qui Vire, and cement that turning stone down with intricately reasoned pronouncements about the "correct" version of faith, morals, and ... basically, everything. Starting by setting in stone (sometimes violently) the very precise nature of the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

    And today, we have a Pope who is more like the real St. Peter: a strong foundation for the Church because he is not set in stone, but able to turn and rock with the movements of the Holy Spirit. Because God is not an artifact in stone, in words, in tradition. God is alive and active in our day, in our Church and outside of it. 

    And may the living Spirit of God visit the participants in the Synod on Synodality, meeting next month to begin the next phase of discussions on how the Church can once again turn, become free in Christ, to better meet the spiritual needs of the people of our time, who are more and more alienated from the old set-in-concrete structure.

    Amen.

††††††† PEACE †††††††