“And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.”(MT 16:17). Rarely does the Feast Day of Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles, fall on a Sunday and celebrated as such. Two very different individuals who were instrumental in laying the foundation of the burgeoning Church, followers of Christ Jesus. Peter demonstrated his leadership skills as detailed in the Acts of the Apostles, committing himself entirely to the mission of the Church after the resurrected Jesus asked him a third time, “Do you love me.” But his weaknesses also shaped—empowered—his ministry as our first Pope. He refused to have Jesus wash his feet at the Last Supper; later he denied knowing Jesus three times out of fear; he fell asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane and abandoned the crucified Jesus. As the Jesuit, Fr. James Martin wrote in his book, My Life with the Saints: “Only someone like Peter, who understood his own sinfulness and the redeeming love of Christ, would be able to lead the infant church to Jesus. Only someone as weak as Peter could do what he did….it is in our failings, and in the parts of our lives that embarrass us, that we are often drawn closer to God. ”And St. Peter’s companion, St. Paul, was described in one of the apocryphal writings as a man who was “bald-headed, bowlegged, strongly built, a man small in size, with meeting eyebrows, with a rather large nose. ” He spent his early adult years terrorizing Christians, and was complicit with those who killed Stephen (our first martyred saint).
After his stunning conversion St. Paul became the Church’s greatest missionary Thessalonica, Galatia, Colossae, Jerusalem, Cyprus, Crete, Malta, Athens, Syracuse, Rome. His letters directed, corrected, encouraged, guided, inspired the relatively infant Christian communities in various locations. He never tired of pointing away from himself and toward the grace of Christ Jesus. Acknowledging the persecution, the doubts, the continued anxieties of the early followers of Christ and the fledging Christian churches, St. Paul eloquently and forcefully provided the needed inspiration in his letter to the Romans (chapter 8): “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine. . . .No. . . .For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” St. Peter was more than just our first Pope, the Vicar of Christ, the Bishop of Rome, the Rock; he was in spirit a missionary not unlike St. Paul, but called to evangelize within his own unique character. From his homily on World Mission Day, 2013, the late Pope Francis reminds us all—in the spirit of Saints Peter & Paul, Apostles—we too are called within our daily lives and encounters to consider, “Missionary spirit is not only about geographical territories, but about peoples, cultures and individuals, because the ‘boundaries’ of faith do no only cross places and human traditions, but the heart of each man and each woman. ”We are blessed as a Church to recognize the efforts, dedication, faith and apostolic fortitude of these two men who believed in their callings—despite their respective flaws—and inspired generations of men and women to heed the simple and profound calling of Christ Jesus voiced to St. Peter, “Follow me.” So quickly we approach our Independence Day, or as some would say, “the halfway point of summer.” May the words of Thomas Jefferson continue to guide our individual and communal efforts as a nation—blessed so greatly in our freedoms— to graciouslyendeavor, “to holdthese truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that theyare endowed bytheir Creator with certain unalienable rights; thatamongtheseare life, liberty,andthepursuitof happiness. Father of all nations and ages, werecall the day when ourcountryclaimed its place among thefamily of nations; for what has been achieved we giveyou thanks, for the work that still remains we ask your help, and you havecalled us from many peoples to be one nation, grant that, underyour providence, ourcountry mayshareyour blessings with all the peoples of theearth. Amen. (Roman Missal collect, July 4th) God Bless, Fr. Tim FYI: “Julyisa blinddate with summer.” (Hal Borland,author & naturalist)