FEAST OF SAINTS PETER AND PAUL

Acts 12:1-11
2 Timothy 4:6-8, 17-18
Matthew 16:13-19

Today’s Solemnity of Peter and Paul replaces the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. The feast celebrating these two giants in the faith gives us an opportunity to ponder, to stand in awe, and to pray for a similar transformation in our individual lives and in the life of the Church. We may not see ourselves accomplishing the extraordinary fetes that these two did, but we might be able to identify with their weaknesses and so find hope.

It is unfortunate that when we contemplate the saints, the great ones in the Church’s Canon, we tend to see them in their iconic state, haloed and golden robed. To do so takes them out of the realm of the ordinary and makes them inimitable. The saints become part of the experience of transcendence, distant and remote. We lose sight of their humanity and the wonder of conversion that changed their lives in ways that grace can do for us if we cooperate and let go.

Both of these saints received a new name as part of their call. Simon the fisherman became Peter, petrus, Rock, the one upon whose witness Jesus builds his Church. How certain was Peter when he responded for the others to Jesus’ question: Who do you say that I am? He, like the other disciples, had to struggle with what people were saying about Jesus. Some said complementary things identifying Jesus with John the Baptist, or the great prophets. But some said he was mad, one who comported with tax collectors and sinners and, therefore, should be put to death. How firm was Peter’s conviction when Peter filled the silence that followed Jesus’ question with the declaration: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God? He may have been convinced that Jesus was the anointed one of God. But the expectations he had for what the Anointed One would do and accomplish for Israel had to be refined through disappointment after disappointment and had to rise phoenix-like from the ashes after Jesus was rejected and crucified. And Peter had to live with his cowardice as one who feared a servant girl and swore he did not know Jesus. Yet, Jesus called him Rock.

Saul of Tarsus, a zealot for Israel, wanted to stamp out the heretic sect that was growing up around the recently crucified Jesus. He stood with the robes of the executioners at his feet while Stephen was stoned to death. Stephen’s prophecy of seeing Jesus at God’s right hand did not move Saul. We are used to hearing the account of that life-altering encounter on the road to Damascus, the voice, the question, the lightning like flash. Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? We might miss how abased Saul was in that moment of meeting Jesus. Knocked from his horse, blinded, he had to be taken by the hand and led into the city to learn what he would have to suffer for the Name.

The lesson of utter dependence upon Jesus probably was not a difficult one for Peter. He had the memory of his weaknesses and blunders. He walked on water when his eyes were fixed on Jesus. He sank in panic when wind and waves distracted him. The difficult lesson for Peter was to comprehend the universality of God’s love in Jesus. He had to let go of the concept of unclean as it applied to creatures and gentiles. All things God created are good. All people are redeemed in the blood of Christ and are God’s beloved ones – even the Romans who dominated Jerusalem. Miraculously delivered from prison in today’s first reading, Peter proclaims: Now I know for certain that the Lord sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people had been expecting. Perhaps it was then that he began to sense the meaning of what Jesus had told him that day on the shore following Jesus’ resurrection: I tell you solemnly: as a young man you fastened your belt and went about as you pleased; but when you are older you will stretch out your hands, and another will tie you fast and carry you off against your will. To walk in Jesus’ footsteps would lead to the same end for Peter – the Cross that is the entrance into glory.

Peter and Paul are celebrated in the same feast. But if they became friends, comrades in arms, so to speak, it was after an acrimonious confrontation over the imposition of things Jewish on Gentiles who wanted to come to Christ. Paul says that he withstood Peter to his face and got the concession he sought. We ought not miss the irony that Saul the zealot became Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles.

Hear Jesus’ great commandment: Love one another as I have loved you. Jesus loved to the shedding of the last drop of his blood. Near the end of his life, Paul said, in the words of today’s second reading: I am already being poured out like a libation, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith. In the last act of the lives of both Peter and Paul, the world might see defeat and utter destruction. But through the eyes of faith, Peter on his cross and Paul at his beheading would know that the Lord would rescue them from every evil threat and would bring them safe to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.

As we celebrate Eucharist today, it is not enough for us to marvel at the lives of these two amazing men. We must recognize our common humanity and the wonder of Christ’s transforming love in the gift of faith. Paul said: I can do all things in (Christ) who strengthens me. Peter could say that, too. If we yield to the transforming power of this meal we celebrate, if we let go of our weaknesses and press on strengthened by the Flesh we eat and the Blood we drink, then we too can do all things in Christ who strengthens us. And that will always translate into acts of love. In the end, it is all about love.

Sincerely,

Didymus