Chapter IV. Fourth Proof. of the Third Promise Made to S. Peter: I Have Prayed for Thee, &C

To which of the others was it ever said: / Aat'e "prayed for thee, Peter, that thy faith fail not, and thou being once converted, confirm thy brethren? (Luke xxii. 32). Truly they are two privileges of great importance, these. Our Lord, when about to establish the faith in his Church, did not pray for the faith of any of the others in particular, but only of S. Peter as head. For what could be the object of this prerogative? Satan hath sought you (yos) — you all; hut I have prayed for thee, Peter^ — is not this to place him alone as responsible for all, as head and guide of the whole flock? But who sees not how pregnant this passage is for our purpose? Let us consider what precedes, and we shall find that Our Lord had declared to his Apostles that there was one of them greater than the others: He who is the greatest among you... and he that is the leader, — and immediately Our Lord goes on to say to him that the adversary was seeking to sift them, all of them, as wheat, but that still he had prayed for him in particular that his faith should not fail. I pray you, does not this grace which was so peculiar to

• Ad Jubaianum. III. B him, and which was not common to the others, according to S. Thomas, show that S. Peter was that one who was greatest among them? All are tempted, and prayer is made for one alone. But the words following render all this quite evident. For some Protestant might say that he prayed for S. Peter in particular on account of some other reason that might be imagined (for the imagination ever furnishes support enough for obstinacy), not because he was head of the others or because the faith of the others was maintained in their pastor. On the contrary, gentlemen, it is in order that heing once converted he might confirm his hrethren. He prays for S. Peter as for the con firmer and support of the others; and what is this but to declare him head of the others? Truly one could not give S. Peter the command to confirm the Apostles without charging him to have care of them. For how could he put this command in practice without paying regard to the weakness or the strength of the others in order to strengthen or confirm them? Is this not to again call him foundation of the Church? If he supports, secures, strengthens the very foundation-stones, how shall he not confirm all the rest? If he has the charge of supporting the columns of the Church, how shall he not support all the rest of the building? If he has the charge of feeding the pastors, must he not be sovereign pastor himself? The gardener who sees the young plant exposed to the continual rays of the sun, and wishes to preserve it from the drought which threatens it, does not pour water on each branch, but having well steeped the root considers that all the rest is safe, because the root continues to distribute the moisture to the rest of the plant. Our Lord also,

ART. VI. 0. v.] The Rtde of Faith, 259 having planted this holy assembly of the disciples, prayed for the head and the root, in order that the water of faith might not fail to him who was therewith to supply all the rest, and in order that through the head the faith might always be preserved in the Church.

But I must tell you, before closing this part of my subject, that the denial which S. Peter made on the day of the Passion must not trouble you here; for he did not lose the faith, but only sinned as to the confession of it. Fear made him disavow that which he believed. He believed right but spoke wrong.