STRANGE CHAIR

Feast of the Chair of St. Peter
Matthew 16:13-19

The feast today is rather strange. We celebrate a chair?

Today’s liturgy is called the “Feast of the Chair of St. Peter.” The feast is as strange as the choice made as to who first sat on that “chair”.

The first to sit on the chair we give honor today is Peter, an uneducated fisherman from Bethsaida. He was an unlikely choice for a president of a country or a chairman of the board for a global organization. But he was God’s choice to be the prince of the apostles and the visible head of the Church. Such choice was easily evident to Jesus as Jesus Himself said after Peter’s declaration of faith, “Blest are you, Simon son of Jonah, because it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you but my Father in heaven.” Thus, Jesus conferred on Peter, “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church. And the gates of hell can never hold out against it….”

Peter was God’s choice. And God’s choices are often strange to us who are rather more familiar with the ways of the world.

But the chair of Peter is not Peter’s chair. It is God’s chair on which He made Peter sit. It is not a chair made or bought by Peter for himself. Just as the choice of Peter was God’s so does the chair we now remember is His.

What is this chair all about? Perhaps, a simple illustration will help explain what this chair means.

When you have something very important to discuss with a friend, do you prefer to sit or stand? When you teach a child a vital lesson in life, do you discuss it with him while standing up or sitting down? Do we not have the expression, “Come, let us sit and talk a while”?

The chair is symbolic of two things. On the one hand, dialogue. On the other, pedagogy. We sit to discuss. We also sit to teach.

The Chair of St. Peter symbolizes two of the tasks that Peter and his successors, the popes, have. The pope should be an effective agent towards dialogue and a tireless teacher of the truths of the Kingdom. Sitting on that “Chair” does not, therefore, in anyway mean lording over the others. In sitting on the Chair of St. Peter is to be the servant of all, a servant of dialogue, a servant of the Truth, a servant of the Lord.

There is a funny story I once was told by a priest from Bukidnon. When Archbishop Gaudencio B. Rosales became bishop of Malaybalay, Bukidnon, he tried to speak some Cebuano to the local faithful during one of his first Masses. He said, “Ani-a ako aron maglingkod kaninyo.” For half a second there was silence in the cathedral; then, laughter accompanied by a warm round of applause. The good archbishop spoke in Cebuano but mixed it with the Tagalog word, “maglingkod”. “Maglingkod” in Cebuano means, “to sit down”. Thus, when translated the words of the good archbishop literally meant “I am here to sit down on you.” Certainly, it was not what Archbishop Rosales wanted to convey. It was a mistake, of course. But the good archbishop served the Diocese of Malaybalay well, even risking his life in the fight against illegal logging, not sitting down but moving about and bending low on several instances as he dialogues and teaches.

A chair is such a strange symbol of service. But perhaps not, if we think of service as the real meaning of being chosen by God to occupy His seat.