The following is a transcript for Father James Kubicki's Daily Reflection for Monday, November 9, 2009:



 

 A Mandate To Serve




A lot of people think that the pope's home church or cathedral is Saint Peter's Basilica because that is where most of the big official functions of the pope are held, but it isn't. 

Hello, I'm Father James Kubicki and the reality is that the pope's cathedral or home church isn't Saint Peter's but another basilica called, Saint John Lateran.  And today we're celebrating the anniversary of its dedication, way back in the fourth century. 

It's named for both Saint John the apostle, and Saint John the baptist.  And the Lateran part of its name comes from the family who originally donated the land and the building. 

Shortly after Pope Benedict was elected he went to his cathedral and talked about his chair there.  The chair, or cathedra (from which we get the word cathedral) is the symbol of a bishop's teaching authority.  And for the bishop of Rome, the pope, this is an authority over the entire Church. 

Pope Benedict talked about how some people don't like this, he said,

This power of teaching frightens many people in and outside the Church. They wonder whether freedom of conscience is threatened or whether it is a presumption opposed to freedom of thought. It is not like this. The power that Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors is, in an absolute sense, a mandate to serve. The power of teaching in the Church involves a commitment to the service of obedience to the faith. The Pope is not an absolute monarch whose thoughts and desires are law. On the contrary: the Pope's ministry is a guarantee of obedience to Christ and to his Word. He must not proclaim his own ideas, but rather constantly bind himself and the Church to obedience to God's Word, in the face of every attempt to adapt it or water it down.




 




FATHER JAMES KUBICKI IS THE NATIONAL DIRECTOR OF APOSTLESHIP OF PRAYER.  FOR PRAYER RESOURCES AND TO LEARN MORE ABOUT APOSTLESHIP OF PRAYER, PLEASE VISIT:

www.apostleshipofprayer.org