Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul June 29, 2008

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

An article in this week’s bulletin mentions that today’s observance is an exception in the liturgy of the Church. Rather than following the regular cycle of readings and prayers for the Sundays of the year, we stop today to focus, through the readings and prayer, on a feast honoring two individuals who are important parts of the life that we are as Church. We are asked to think about and to pray with these persons who are important to the faith that we, as Church, share.

Our thoughts today are directed back to the very beginnings of the Church by reflecting on Saints Peter and Paul. They were instrumental individuals in getting out the message of Jesus Christ in the Gospels, of telling others of their experience of Jesus Christ in their lives. In various ways they recall for us the transformations which they experienced because of the role of Jesus Christ in their lives. In a particular way, in the coming year, our attention will be directed to Saint Paul. Pope Benedict has announced that the next year, until we celebrate this feast again next June, that this will be a Jubilee Year in the Church honoring the 2000^th anniversary of the traditional year of his birth. By recognizing the beginning of his life, we also acknowledge that his life still affects us today, as we regularly read and hear of his activities, his reflections on the effect in his life of the presence of Jesus Christ.

Just last week, in going through, of all things, Parade magazine in Sunday’s Plain Dealer, I read a comment or a lament that was made regarding the lack of knowledge of history within our society, and particularly with our youth. Because there is so much emphasis on the “now” and on immediate gratification, what went on before, persons and events that lead to where we are now, what gives us what we have now, is not known or appreciated. For example, as we look forward to the celebration of Independence Day next Friday, there is a serious lack of knowledge of the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War and the early development of our country. By lacking this sort of awareness and perspective, the focus on now lacks significant context and background.

This same lack of awareness can exist in the life and history of the Church of which we are members. Not only are various significant events in the life of the Church unknown, so too are important persons. These are individuals who lived as we did, in their own time in history, struggling and seeking to overcome difficulties in their lives. The lived in a way that their choices in life profoundly affected them and others - some others even now. Not knowing of these events or persons profoundly deprives us of the understanding of the value and importance, the help and assistance, that faith and belief can have on our lives.

Peter and Paul are good, strong examples of just this. How the world is to know of God, and the opportunities which a sound relationship with God can have in the life of others depends on individuals like you and me. We are the ones who experience a value of the role of a loving God in our lives. We are to give evidence, by our lives, of the best way in which to enjoy life, to the benefit in life which comes from acknowledging the love of God for us and sharing that love with others.

Peter and Paul, among many others called saints, were persons of the Church and persons of the world. They are examples to us, not so much because of what they accomplished at the end of their lives, but because of what they were, what they experienced, what they became. They are real human beings, with a history in their own times, who lived the same life as you and me.

In recalling the stories in the scriptures about Peter, we know him to be an ordinary, working man, a fisherman. He is bold, brash and sometimes bumbling. He has high points in his life, and many low points as well. He has leadership skills, but also a mouth that sometimes seems to speak too soon and too much. He was an imperfect instrument in many ways, but he was a choice made by God to spread the Good News.

Paul was a Pharisee, a member of a the group which strongly opposed Jesus. He was quite self-assured in what he was doing, almost cocky. It is suggested that his personality and behavior was an attempt to compensate for his short stature and his appearance. His initial reaction to the Gospel message was to recognize that it upset the Pharisaical party to which he belonged. He made it a point in his life to take care of the followers of Jesus by seeking to eliminate them, persecute them, even kill them. All of this happened until he was “knocked from his horse” as the image portrays, by an experience of Jesus Christ in hi life. He is transformed and changed. He first continues his life studying the effect of his faith in Christ in his life. He then undertakes a great effort to go about the known world of that time, facing rejection, ridicule, persecution and even death as he takes on the community of believers in Jesus Christ and seeks to organize them that they might effectively live out what faith in Jesus Christ and the love of God truly means.

Both men, Peter and Paul, were clearly human, and clear had personality traits that could be difficult. They were clearly struggling with their own faults and failings. But they were convinced of the presence and reality of God in the way in which they lived and acted.

All of us are called in our lives, called from what we are and who we are, to live out the Gospel. We are to live out and show the value and difference for us that this faith in Jesus Christ brings about in us. We are to look at our lives and at the lives of those who share this faith with us realizing that none of us are perfect, all of us are weak and make mistakes in our lives. Hopefully we are convinced of the love of God, and the presence of God that is sacramentally available to us by the belief in and practice of the Catholic Faith. We are to see and to act on the difference, the positive effect, the value this faith has for us in being convinced of our belief in Jesus Christ, in being a part of a community of faith that is the church, that is our parish, in being nourished and renewed in the Eucharist, at Mass, by Christ and by one another.

All of us join with Peter and Paul, and so many others over the centuries of the life of the Church in making known and experienced a relationship with a good and loving God.