Impression of the Keys, Expression of the Faith

Today [February 22] the Church celebrates the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter.  In the Gospel, it is clear that Jesus has already made---so to speak---the “right impression” on Simon Peter.  Even before the Lord’s question, “Who do people say that I am?,” He has already shaped---in the deepest sense in-formed---this fisherman’s heart to bear the correct answer.  On this basis, Simon Peter’s “expression” of faith is infallible:  “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”

I suspect that most people pay their initial visit to the orthodontist harboring the hope of one day making a better impression on the world with straighter teeth and a better smile.  In my several years of adult braces and subsequent jaw surgery, I have been amazed at how many impressions have been taken of my teeth.  X-rays, CT-scans, and MRI’s have been necessary and helpful to my doctors, but apparently there is no substitute for that basic three dimensional, physical form which replicates the teeth and bite exactly---in all of their imperfections.

I was most impressed (no pun intended!) at the Piper Clinic with how these multiple dental impressions actually were used to fashion a movable, adjustable model of my whole jaw and joint structure.  The purpose of this fabricated model was to reproduce perfectly both the present condition of my jaw and joint structure as well as to allow the creation of its ideal, post-operative shape.  The splint that I now wear in my mouth was literally formed from this modeled idealization of the initial impressions.  During my surgery, this “ideally” shaped piece of plastic was inserted into my mouth to place my jaw into the optimal position, around which my joints could be repaired and in which perfected form they continue---over the course of months---ultimately to heal.

When Simon Peter was given the “Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven,” the Lord Jesus had, of course, fashioned them in part from Israel’s present hope for the Messiah’s coming.  But over the course of time, Christ had to correct---truly re-form---the expectations of the Apostles and His other followers, con-forming them to the wise and loving divine ideal which can only be realized in the “operation” of the Lord’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection. 

I must confess that wearing this splint continuously, day after day, feels both frustratingly restrictive and increasingly natural and normal (the resilient body really does adjust to inconvenience!).  It makes me wonder how Peter’s contemplation over time of the exact form and therapeutic exercise of those keys continued to “impress” him, even---and paradoxically---through his disappointments and temporary misunderstandings of what the Lord wanted of him. In the Acts of the Apostles, Peter’s expressions of faith are clearly the fruit of the very operation of the Holy Spirit.  The Apostle possesses the confident skill of a surgeon, whose words are able to “cut to the heart” to heal.  In the end, though, beyond merely spoken words, Peter’s life will be so conformed to Christ’s that his cruciform death will mirror that of His Master; his martyrdom will become his most eloquent sermon. 

As I think about the Cross as key and my splint as a cross, I must learn St. Peter’s infallible lesson---that any true and future expression of Christ with my lips presupposes a continual and deeper impression of the form of His Passion, Death, and Resurrection on my life.