Odd Scriptural Event

There is a Protestant way of seeing Jesus statement to Peter:

And so I say to you, you are Peter,
and upon this rock I will build my Church,
and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven.
Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

There is a Catholic way of seeing it as well.

The Protestant way of seeing it does not affirm a special authority for Peter.

That's where the odd event of the day happened. I was hearing the gospel passage as if I'd never heard it before. That's nothing new, it's a discipline I practice. Yet, today I realized that Jesus was indeed speaking to Peter himself.

Now, I do not believe that Jesus, or Peter, ever meant for something as grandiose as the church we have today. Catholic or Protestant. It reminds me of something St. Bernard said somewhere about Cluny that "your churches are covered in gold, but the poor remain hungry and naked." Or words to that effect.

Still, the Church is something run by human beings. Yet beneath all the corruption, and lusting for power, dominance, conformity that characterizes much of what goes on in the Churches, there remains the simple truth of the gospel.

God is unknowable, unseeable;
we do not know if we even come close to God
except by faith. I have faith in God.
And, I have faith in the Sacraments.
Without the Sacraments I am not near enough to God.