With the closing of today’s Gospel excerpt, Jesus speaks of “going to the Father.” Prior to this however, He had prepared Peter and the other apostles and commissioned them to continue His mission in the world.

As we hear in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles, when problems arose among the believers, “the twelve,” (i.e., Peter and the other apostles) called the community together to seek a resolution; in our second reading, we hear Peter continuing the teaching mission of Jesus, “Let yourselves be built into a spiritual house…”

That Peter who was “the rock,” the Vicar of Christ and the focus of the unity of the family of believers comes into our midst during these days in the person of Benedict XVI, our Holy Father. He is our teacher and the father of our family of faith. It is an astoundingly different world than the world of the first Peter and the family of faith embraces not just a handful of believers but perhaps a billion people of every culture in every part of the world.

How could one man be a teacher and a sign of unity for such a vast and diverse world of believers? Indeed his person is respected and even reverenced by many unbelievers. Clearly Benedict is gifted with a profound intellect but it is neither his person nor his personality that make him who he is. It is the fact that he is the Vicar of Christ, the successor of St. Peter, the Rock on which Christ has built His Church. Benedict is humbly conscious that he shares with us an imperfect human nature and even though he is gifted in many ways, he also knows that his role is not to teach his own wisdom but rather to present Jesus Christ and His Gospel to the complex and ever-changing world of 2008.

Let us welcome him with joy; may his visit be the occasion for renewing and deepening our faith and our sense of unity in Jesus Christ. May we also support him by our loving prayers.

Msgr. O’Donnell