The hordes of hell will fail in their assault on the Church.

“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16: 16).

Sunday 23rd August 2020, 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time.

The Gospel of today Matthew 16: 13 - 20 celebrates the investiture of Peter and his successors as the unshakable rock on which the Church founded by Jesus Christ is built. It is the confession of Peter inspired by God the Father that unleashed this privilege. The first Reading from Isaiah 22: 19 - 23 foreshadows today's Gospel when Isaiah writes about the newly promoted Eliakim:
"He [Eliakim] shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah. I will place the key of the House of David on his shoulder; what he opens, no one will shut, what he shuts, no one will open. I will fix him as a peg in a firm place, a seat of honor for his ancestral house." (Isaiah 22: 21 - 23).

Jesus now makes Peter the Eliakim of the seed of the kingdom of God on earth.
"You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church. And the gates of the underworld can never hold out against it." (Matthew 16: 18).

If the Church is not of divine origin, it could never have survived the coup d'etat of Martin Luther. Many of the princes of Europe at the time predicted that the Church was finished. At the Council of Trent, things went badly for the Church and its official representatives for over 90% of the time. Almost at the last moment through divine intervention, the Church upheld its faith that it is the will of God that Divine Revelation comes to us from three sources:
#1 Sacred Scripture.
#2 Sacred Tradition.
#3 Sacred Magisterium.

Not just Sacred Scripture but the other two as well.

These three are co-dependent like a three-legged stool. The gates of the underworld can never hold out against the Church.

Thank You Jesus.

Daily Bible Verse @ Seekfirst.blogspot.com