The keys and the sword

Fr David Howell • June 29, 2025

“They came to the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord,” (Acts 12:10).

The angel freed Peter from Herod’s prison by miraculously unlocking several doors, as if the keys of the kingdom which Jesus had given him were at work in a concrete way.

These metaphorical keys allude to Isaiah 22:22, where the king invests his prime minister with his own authority through the symbol of a key. Jesus himself, in Revelation, states that the key is his (3:7), but it is lent to Peter and his successors until the last day, when Jesus will receive it back—as depicted in Michelangelo’s Last Judgement. The papacy is the gift of Christ’s own authority, given to us to open heaven.

But in order to enter the unlocked door of heaven, we must first escape the gates of Hades, which “will not prevail against the Church” (Matthew 16:18). In other words, the Church is attacking Hades—the kingdom of evil spirits—and it will succeed. Hell and Hades are different: the former is eternal separation from God, which no one can escape, but we can be freed from Hades—the forces of evil on earth—by the grace of Christ working through his Church.

The “weapon of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 6:7) that we have for this combat is above all “the sword of the Spirit, the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17). Paul is often depicted with a sword because he was beheaded with one, but also because he described the Word he preached as a sword. This sword issues from the mouth of Christ (Revelation 1:16), but it was wielded so effectively by Paul.

Let us ask Peter to keep unlocking heaven for us through the authority of Christ given to his successors, and let us ask Paul to help us break open the gates of Hades by preaching Jesus’s words as he did. The solemn blessing at the end of Mass synthesises these symbols: “By the keys of St Peter and the words of St Paul, and by the support of their intercession, God may bring us happily to that homeland that Peter attained on a cross and Paul by the blade of a sword.”

Above all, let us be inspired by the example of these two saints who had been great sinners, as the prayer over the offerings at the Vigil Mass so beautifully describes: “the more we doubt our own merits, the more we may rejoice that we are to be saved by your loving kindness.”