Feast of the Chair of St. Peter

Jesus Christ, in beginning it, still spoke to many: "Go, preach; I send you." Now, when He would put the last hand to the mystery of unity, He speaks no longer to many: He marks out Peter personally, and by the new name which He has given him. It is One who speaks to one: Jesus Christ the Son of God to Simon son of Jonas; Jesus Christ, who is the true Stone, strong of Himself, to Simon, who is only the stone by the strength which Jesus Christ imparts to him. It is to him that Christ speaks, and in speaking acts on him, and stamps upon him His own immovableness. "And I," He says, "say to you, you are Peter; and upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." To prepare him for that honor Jesus Christ, who knows that faith in Himself is the foundation of His Church, inspires Peter with a faith worthy to be the foundation of that admirable building. "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." By that bold preaching of the faith he draws to himself the inviolable promise which makes him the foundation of the Church.

It was, then, clearly the design of Jesus Christ to put first in one alone, what afterwards He meant to put in several; but the sequence does not reverse the beginning, nor the first lose his place. That first word, "Whatsoever you shall bind," said to one alone, has already ranged under his power each one of those to whom shall be said, "Whatsoever you shall remit"; for the promises of Jesus Christ, as well as His gift, are without repentance; and what is once given indefinitely and universally is irrevocable. Besides, that power given to several carries its restriction in its division, while power given to one alone, and over all, and without exception, carries with it plenitude, and, not having to be divided with any other, it has no bounds save those which its terms convey.
--The See of St. Peter, Jacques Bossuet