PETER AND PAUL

 SAINTS PETER AND PAUL

 The Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul is on 29 June. ‘Solemnity’ is a big word, usually reserved for the Feasts of the Lord, not the feats of the Saints. So how did Peter and Paul sneak into this honour reserved for the Lord? Can any canonised do-gooder be foisted onto the Lord’s domain? Well, if you look more closely you’ll understand that there wouldn’t be a Peter or a Paul unless there was Jesus. Were it not for Jesus, Peter would have lived and died as Simon, son of John, small time manager of Simon fisheries, limited to Lake Genasaret. And again, were it not for Jesus, Paul would have remained Saul, riding cockhorse as the persecutor of the first followers of Christ. But he was pushed off his high horse, and as his derrière hit the hard ground of reality, divine wisdom entered, and Saul the persecutor became Paul the preacher. His accumulated excellence, pride of conviction, driving stubbornness were transformed into something different, like nuclear energy that is diverted from making bombs to generating power to light up our homes.

            Simon, son of John, had very narrow ideas about messiahship and authority, and he thought he would advise Jesus how to go about his messiahship, especially how to avoid mess-ups. In the Scriptures, Peter is presented as being very prominent whenever he was accompanying Jesus, not because he said the right things, but because, more often than not, he managed to say the wrong things, speaking without thinking through what he was going to say. Jesus called him ‘Satan’, because he had a rock where his brain should have been and was blocking Jesus’ way to Jerusalem.  Jesus would make him a rock of another unimaginable quality: the Simon of nature would become the Peter of grace, the great and good St. Peter, our first Pope.

            The original Saul and Simon were convinced they were doing the right thing, but it needed our Lord to take their misplaced energy and channel it more constructively. It can happen to us, too. We could be pursuing our personal policies and parading them as the providence of God. That is why we need a good shake-up, the Spirit’s lightning flash, to keep us from self-serving politics.

            Peter and Paul were very human. Peter was impetuous, impulsive and unstable. Paul was zealous, proud and violent. Peter denied the Lord and Paul persecuted him. Peter was unschooled and pedestrian. He was known to be a bungler to his friends and a bruiser to his enemies. He didn’t look to be the kind of person to walk away from a fight. Remember that when the crunch came at Gethsemane he sliced the high priest’s servant’s ear and only stepped back at the word of Jesus who would go it alone. The other disciples didn’t walk away, they ran!

Paul was an educated man with a proud pedigree, coming from a different background and of different mettle.  He wasn’t much more promising though than Peter. A Greek-speaking Jew, well educated, but a narrow-minded Pharisee down to the hem of his cloak. Self-righteous to his eyebrows, somewhat haughty and aggressive, with hatred for the Christians and disdain for the gentiles.

            Yet these two were the founders of the church in Rome and Christianity’s greatest apostles. What miracle transformed their common clay into the greatness of sanctity? In Peter and Paul God saw what the human eye could not discern. Someone has said very beautifully that Jesus looked at men and women and loved them not so much for what they were as for what they could become, i.e. what his love could make them.

            Saints Peter and Paul were people like you and me, people with weaknesses as well as strengths. When they were first called by Christ   -  Peter from his fishing nets and Paul from his ultra Jewish orthodoxy  -  they must have wondered why the Lord had chosen them. What had they to offer? Why them?

Peter recognised that he was a sinner, and at one very low point even told the Lord to leave him. Paul described himself as one born out of time and the greatest of sinners. Yet Jesus had seen their potential to be great disciples. He was willing to take a risk with them; and he took it because theirs was an openness to change and grow. They rose to the challenge, and the name of Jesus reached many parts of the world. Paul realised his mistake early enough to become the greatest missionary and theologian the Christian world has ever known. He started out as the hatchet man of the Pharisees and ended up by being a fool for Christ.

            And as for Peter, he turned out to be the good and gentle shepherd that Jesus wanted him to be. And as Jesus had also foretold, he too was led like a lamb to his martyrdom. The story is that he was crucified upside down. G. K. Chesterton has a beautiful line on this. Peter, indeed, hung upside down. “He thus saw the landscape as it really is: with the stars like flowers, and the clouds like hills, and all men hanging on the mercy of God.” Suspended there on the cross, Peter the Shepherd now also became the lamb of sacrifice: shepherd and lamb combined into one testimony of faith and love.

            Here is a good lesson for popes, bishops, priests and those who wish to serve in the church’s ministry.  Clerical leadership has more often than not described itself in the imagery of royal shepherding than in the imagery of sacrificial lamb. Generally speaking, the only popes, bishops and priests in recent centuries who have combined lamb and shepherd in their daily lives have merited to be canonised. One such priest was St. John Mary Vianney. He lived and cared for his people in a manner suggestive of the divine lamb and shepherd.

            In the crypt of St. Peter’s basilica in Rome are the tombs of the popes. The two tombs that are most patronised and covered with flowers are those of Pope John XXIII and our dear departed Pope John Paul II. The millions who visit these two tombs have made the point clear that these shepherds-lambs have merited to be declared that they belong to the order of Peter and Paul for all time.

PRAYER (St. Peter): God of mercy; we are as Peter; we lose our nerve and deny in the time of trial. Calm our anxiety, heal our cowardice, take away our shame, and make us free.

             (St. Paul):  All-perceiving Lover,

                              sensing each disguise,

                        kindly you uncover

                              bruised and aching eyes.

                        Wake us into wonder

                              At your dawning day

                        Halt us with your thunder

                              On our stubborn way.