That cross involves strengthening his brethren – we, who, like him, are “partakers of Christ’s sufferings, so that, when his glory is revealed, we may also be glad and rejoice with great joy”
By Anthony Esolen*
An icon depicting the scene in which Christ asks Peter three times, “Peter, do you love Me?”
If you walk south along the Appian Way, just outside the walls of Rome, you may see a small church with the strange name, Domine Quo Vadis. Ancient legend has it that the Christians of Rome, wishing to save their beloved shepherd’s life, begged Peter to leave the city, lest Nero and his ministers seize him and put him to death, as they were doing to other Christians. So Peter was traveling away, no doubt with an uneasy conscience, when he saw Jesus approaching in the opposite direction.
“Domine, quo vadis?” asked Peter – “Lord, where are you going?”
“Because you have abandoned the flock I entrusted to your care,” Jesus replied, “I am going to Rome to be crucified a second time.” At that, Peter turned about and went back to Rome, where he suffered the death that Jesus suffered, crucifixion, though tradition has it that Peter, believing himself unworthy to die in exactly the same way the Lord died, asked that his cross be turned upside down.
Two moments in Peter’s life come to my mind here, as they apply to the Petrine ministry and that of the bishops, submitting to the authority of their chief shepherd. The first happens just after Jesus gives a new name to Simon son of John, calling him, in Aramaic, Kephah, that is, “Rock,” in its Greek form, Petros. That is because Peter, inspired by God, has made the great confession: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt. 16:16). Jesus says he will found his Church upon this rock; and we should keep in mind what he will say about the Temple, when his disciples want to show him around the buildings: “There shall not be left here one stone upon another” (Mt. 24:2).
Peter must have kept it in mind, because the image of the stone will become crucial to him, as he cites the triumphant Psalm 118, applying the verse to Jesus, “The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” (1 Pt. 2:7; cf. Ps. 118:22), and he reminds his flock that they are “living stones, built up into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood” (1 Pt. 2:5).
Unlike the Temple in Jerusalem, both during the time of the prophets and the time that is approaching soon, this new house, this Church, will never be destroyed. Of it, we will not say, as the prophet said of the Jews driven into exile by the Babylonians, “All flesh is grass” (Is. 40:6), cited by Peter himself (1 Pt. 1:24). This house, the house of the good news, is imperishable.
But as soon as Peter hears Jesus say he must go to Jerusalem – for Jesus, hardly the “City of Peace” suggested by its name – to be condemned by the elders and be put to death, he takes him aside to talk him out of it.
At this, Jesus turns on Peter and cries out, “Get thee behind me, Satan!” (Mt. 16:23), as if Peter were setting a trap for him, placing a stumbling-stone – Greek skandalon – in his path. The temptation, we see, is that Jesus may save himself by refusing to give everything, his very life, for those he loves. It is to say, “I shall love, but not to the end” (cf. Jn. 13:1). It is to reverse the prayer that Jesus will pray in Gethsemane, and to say instead, “In this regard, O God, let my will be done, since I have loved you quite enough already.”
We feel sorry for Peter as he hears that sharp rebuke. Jesus called the Pharisees a “brood of vipers” (Mt. 12:34), and he called Herod Antipas “that fox” (Lk. 13:32), but harshest of all is what he calls Peter, that great-hearted and impetuous and sometimes foolish man. Yet he singles Peter out, and we may suppose that Jesus is building him up to the stature of the office he is to hold.
The way is not always gentle. Here it is strenuous, and it involves suffering; not only the suffering that Peter wants to spare Jesus, but that which Jesus himself causes Peter to feel. To follow in Peter’s shoes, then, is not to set yourself above criticism, and not to assume an office of dignity apart from love and the suffering in this life that love inevitably demands.
That brings us to the second moment I have in mind. This time we are on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and the risen Christ has appeared, in the early morning, to Peter and several of the other apostles. They have partaken of a meal of bread and broiled fish. Jesus says to Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these do?” (Jn. 21:15).
Notice that he does not call him Peter. It is as if Peter has reverted to the Simon before his profession of faith. That must have struck Peter to the heart. “Yes, Lord,” says Peter, “you know that I love you.” “Feed my lambs,” says Jesus.
Jesus will ask the question three times, echoing the three-time denial by Peter, when Jesus was being tried by Pontius Pilate, that he even knew the man (cf. Lk. 22:54-62).
Peter was afraid for his life, yet not utterly afraid, either, or he would not have lingered around at all. He wanted what any decent follower of Jesus, then or now, would want: to show his love, and to love indeed, but not to love to the end, not if it requires too much suffering, and not if it means your death.
That is why, I think, once Peter has affirmed three times that he does love Jesus, and has actually had his feelings hurt, because he cannot help but recall what he said three times several days before, Jesus tells Peter about the suffering that is in store for him: “Truly, I say to you, when you were a young man, you girded yourself and you walked where you wanted to go, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you and take you where you do not want to go” (Jn. 21:18).
That, says the evangelist John, was a prophecy of the death Peter was going to die, crucifixion. It is the only time in the gospels that Jesus tells someone how he is going to die.
St. Peter is crucified upside-down in this 1601 painting by Caravaggio (1571-1610) which hangs in the Cerasi chapel in the Santa Maria del Popolo church in Rome.
So we have the two moments, unlike any others. Jesus calls Peter “Satan,” and Jesus tells Peter that he will be crucified. Thus when he says to Peter, “Follow me” (Jn. 21:19), we can assume that to follow Jesus is to walk the way of love, which is the way of suffering and martyrdom, of witnessing to Jesus by your life and death.
Since that is so, what a staggering inversion it is, to hear people talk about winning the papacy as if it were like winning a secular election, or to hear them talk about a Pope’s teaching as if it were the work of his peculiar person. Had anyone praised Peter for innovativeness, Peter would have taken it as a mark that the person had not understood anything at all – or he would have searched his conscience uneasily, praying to God to guard him against that temptation.
For Peter preaches also that we must suffer, if we are to follow Christ. It is essential to our communion. “Rejoice,” he says, “as you are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, so that, when his glory is revealed, you may also be glad and rejoice with great joy” (1 Pt. 4:13).
Let then our new Peter, Pope Leo XIV, give us the strength of heart to follow the first Peter in his accepting the cross. For that is where the world will take us, in one way or another, if we are faithful.
*Dr. Anthony Esolen teaches at Thales College in North Carolina and publishes a web magazine dedicated to language, music, poetry and classic films called Word and Song with his wife, Debra.
