21st Sunday of Ordinary Time, A August 23, 2026
Fr. Alexander Albert St. Mary Magadalen, Abbeville, LA
In 1949, a Russian philosopher named Nikolai published a book about God. As a scholar, he used footnotes to cite his sources. One footnote, however, has becoming an enduring meme on the internet because it just says, “this was revealed to me in a dream.” Try that on next paper in English class and see what happens!
And yet… if St. Joseph had written a paper about traveling to Egypt, he would be right to say “this was revealed to me in a dream.” If Simon Peter were to publish a book saying “Jesus is the Son of God,” his footnote could say “this was revealed to me by the heavenly Father.” Actually, his followers did publish a book doing that…
When it comes to science and history, you have to make a case. You need evidence and experiments. But when we’re talking about God, we can only figure out some of the basics: that God exists, that’s he’s eternal and all-powerful. You can never research the full truth about God because His ways are “unsearchable,” His judgments “inscrutable.” To know things like the Trinity, the Incarnation, the future resurrection of the dead… we need someone to say “God revealed this to me.”
Yet, that poses a major problem. How do we know it’s true? When someone claims God revealed something to them, what’s to stop them from lying? When somebody makes a false claim about physics or history, you can redo their experiments or go to the source to prove them wrong. But what if the source is just “trust me, bro, God told me?”
We know God did speak to Abraham and Moses and David and Isaiah and Ezekiel even though a lot of people did not believe them. We also know that people like Mohammed and Joseph Smith claimed “God revealed this to me,” but were either lying or were lied to. How?
There are two major ways to verify the claim of divine revelation. Miracles and Authority. When someone says “hey, God said this” and you say, “oh yeah? Prove it!” If they reach out and raise someone from the dead right in front of you, it makes them seem credible. The “footnote” is them doing something only God can do. Jesus tells the Apostles that he will “confirm” their teachings with miracles. The New Testament is full of examples of that.
Truly, the Catholic Church has no shortage of highly documented, verified, impossible-to-explain miracles. The problem is that miracles are still relatively rare and that some people are good at faking miracles. Knowing this, God gave us another way to know who to trust as a source for divine revelation. That other way is authority, the thing we see given in the first reading and in today’s Gospel. While far less exciting, divine authority is far more reliable, far more common, and far easier to track than verifying miracles. God used miracles to validate the claims of Abraham and Moses and King David. But God also gave those men authority and gave them the ability to pass on that authority to others. Jesus tells his apostles to obey those who “sit on the chair of Moses,” while also telling them not to follow their bad example. God even uses the inherited authority of King David to prove the legitimacy of his own son, Jesus, as the eternal king.
Once Jesus has established himself as God and eternal king, however, he sets up another visible authority that people can trace just like the Jews used to be able to trace back to David or Moses. This is why we have the first reading from Isaiah about Eliakim replacing Shebnah. Replaced how? As the chief steward of the house. The chief steward, also called the keeper of the keys, was a position in the kingdom of Israel under King David and his successors. He was basically second in command under the king. He couldn’t issue royal decrees, but he could act with full authority under the king to carry out the daily governance of the kingdom. That’s why Isaiah says God will place the “key of the House of David on Eliakim’s shoulder.”
Eliakim is not the king, he is the steward of the king. Simon Peter likewise is not the king. Jesus is the king. Simon Peter is his chief steward. Jesus is the source of divine truth and revelation. Simon Peter is not the source, he is its authoritative steward. In the early days of Christianity, God used miracles to confirm new revelation, new information about himself through the Apostles. As an apostle, Simon Peter does teach the world new things about God. That stops when the last Apostle dies. There is no more new information about God, only a better understanding of what he already told us. That process of understanding more, however, still needs someone to verify that we’re understanding correctly. That’s why Peter is not just an apostle, but a pope. As pope… as the “rock” Jesus describes in the gospel, Simon Peter and his successors are the chief stewards with authority to interpret revelation and govern the followers of Jesus. A pope cannot add new revelation.
So yes, the authority of the pope and the bishops united to him is divine authority, but it is limited to governing the church and to the interpretation and application of what’s already revealed. Why does this matter? For more reasons than I can cover… So, I’ll focus on just a few.
First, this gives us a way to verify, to “check the footnotes” on whether someone is really acting on God’s behalf. The Israelites could trace Moses’ authority until it ceased. The Jews could trace David’s authority until his line ended. Now, we can trace Peter’s authority to this very day. We will not always understand, much less like what the Catholic Church teaches, but we do at least have a way of knowing that it is what the Church teaches.
Secondly, our belief in the Pope’s authority is very biblical. There are Christians who act like they are “more authentic” or have a “simple faith” because they don’t “worry about” all this pope and bishop stuff. Just because it’s easier doesn’t make it purer or better. Scripture points to a tangible human structure to exercise God’s authority. The reason we even have a “bible” in the first place is because the pope and bishops used their authority to tell us which books were divinely inspired – like Matthew, Acts, and Hebrews – and which books were not divinely inspired – like the false gospel of James and the letter of St. Barnabas.
Third and most importantly, it gives us the chance to trust and obey something tangible. If we only ever accept and practice the parts of the gospel that we can figure out for ourselves, we don’t trust God, we trust ourselves. It’s good when we understand and like Church teaching, but if every time we run up against a part we don’t like, our response is “prove it to me first,” then that reveals a serious imperfection in our faith. By submitting to an authority beyond ourselves, though, we practice trust and we humbly admit our limitations.
We trust the authority of the Church not because we trust the men who use that authority, but because we trust the God who gave it to them. Even in their sins, the pope and bishops have never authoritatively taught falsehood or changed the gospel. When Simon Peter denied Jesus three times, he didn’t stand up and say “I solemnly declare that the magisterium of the Church denies Jesus.” When popes and bishops say false things or commit sins… they are failing to use their authority, but that doesn’t mean we can ignore them when they do use it.
The devil is a liar and the “gates of hell” are all the lies and sins that lock us into a false way of life, that try to cut us off from God’s love and God’s truth. Do not let them! There are many people in the world who serve the devil whether they know it or not… those who lie, those who teach falsehood, those who encourage sin; don’t listen to them! Do not let them close you inside the gates of hell’s lies. “Who do people say that I am?” Jesus asks. “People” are so often wrong.
And if you don’t know whether their teachings and claims are legit… check the footnotes! Are they standing on the rock of Peter’s authority? Are they connected to the Church in a tangible way? Are they teaching what we teach in the catechism and official decrees? Are they interpreting scripture in the way the saints and popes and bishops have always interpreted it? When those teachings are hard, when you don’t understand, when it means obeying a command you don’t like… then see it as it is, an opportunity to practice faith in God rather than yourself.
God’s love is eternal and he will not forsake the work of his hands. His hands built the Catholic Church on the rock of divine authority. “Who do you say that I am?” he asks you, he asks Peter. Where “people” were wrong, Peter the rock was right. So, when you answer that question from Jesus… answer with Peter, stand on that rock and the gates of hell will never be able to keep you away from God’s eternal love.