Solemnity of Ss. Peter and Paul
Traudel
SAINT PETER
THE dominant figure among the followers of Christ in the Gospels is Peter,
Prince of the Apostles. If through no other means than by listening for
years
to the Sunday Gospels read in church, every Catholic, whether he is aware of
it
or not, has an indelible knowledge of the events in the life of the Church's
first leader. It takes little effort for us to recall the most important of
them: Christ's calling of Simon (Peter's original name) and his brother
Andrew
away from their trade as fishermen on the Sea of Galilee: "Come, follow me,
and
I will make you fishers of men" (Matt. 4:19); Simon Peter's resounding
confession of faith in Christ when our Lord tested the apostles by asking
them
who he was: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt. 16:17),
and
Christ's profoundly significant reply: "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona,
for
flesh and blood has not revealed this to thee, but my Father in heaven. And
I
say to thee, thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and
the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:17-18); then Christ's
foretelling Peter's denial of Him: ". . . this very night, before a cock
crows
twice, thou wilt deny me three times" (Mark 14:30), and Peter's bitterly
repented fulfillment of the prophecy: "I do not know the man!" (Matt.
26:72).
Additional information about Peter's life is contained in the Acts of the
Apostles, where his actions as head of the Church are recorded: on the first
Pentecost he speaks for all the apostles, and about three thousand converts
are
made (Acts 2:14-41); in the name of Christ he heals the sick, who are eager
to
have even his shadow fall on them (Acts 3:6; 5:15); imprisoned by Herod, he
is
miraculously released by an angel (Acts 12:1-17); he leads the way in
preaching
the faith to the gentiles (Acts 10:1-48) and, at the Council of Jerusalem
(about
the year 51), rules against subjecting them to all the requirements of the
old
Jewish law (Acts 15:6-1).
Tradition-our final source of knowledge about Peter completes his history:
until about the year 42, he had his see at Antioch; afterwards he was in
Corinth, and finally in Rome where he established his see permanently, wrote
his
two Epistles, and suffered martyrdom-a head-downward crucifixion under the
emperor Nero, about the year 67. For centuries it has been believed that
Peter's tomb was under the high altar in Saint Peter's at Rome, and recent
excavations there have brought to light considerable evidence in
confirmation of
this tradition.
From all these sources an appealing image of Peter emerges: a man so like
ourselves that we are attracted to him as we seldom are to saints whose
almost
inhuman severities leave us awe-struck. Peter is human-all too human at
times.
Full of brave words and good intentions, he as often as not fails abjectly
when
put to the test. After he confidently leaps out of the boat and begins to
walk
on the water at Christ's bidding, fear seizes him and he begins to sink;
Christ
has to rescue him, saying, "O thou of little faith, why didst thou doubt?"
(Matt. 14:31). Before his shameful denial of Christ he boasts pathetically,
"Even though all shall be scandalized because of thee, I will never be
scandalized. . . . Even if I should have to die with thee, I will not deny
thee!" (Matt. 26:33, 35). When Christ prophesies His own passion and death
to
the apostles, Peter takes it upon himself to assure our Lord confidently,
"Far
be it from thee, O Lord; this will never happen to thee"; and Christ has to
reprimand his brash follower with, "Get behind me, satan, thou art a scandal
to
me; for thou dost not mind the things of God, but those of men" (Matt.
16:22-23). Even after Christ's Ascension, when Peter is acting as head of
the
Church, he does not escape reproof; Saint Paul, in his Epistle to the
Galatians,
says that, because Peter stopped eating with the gentiles out of fear of
what
the Jewish Christians would say, "I withstood him to his face, because he
was
deserving of blame" (Gal. 2:11). Poor Peter! He could do nothing right!
But before we take too much comfort from his weakness and mediocrity, we
might
note some of his other qualities. At his first meeting with Christ, when he
senses something of our Lord's infinity, he realizes exactly what his own
worth
is and sums it up with nice precision: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful
man, O
Lord" (Luke 5:8). Honest enough to admit this, he is also courageous enough
to
leave everything he has to follow Christ. So wholehearted is his commitment
that when Christ later asks the apostles if they want to leave Him, as many
others are doing, Peter can only say, "Lord, to whom shall we go?" (John
6:69).
Christ is now at the center of Peter's existence and there is nothing else
in
the world that has any meaning for him. Even after denying Christ, he
perseveres in his attachment to Him and repents, and does not fall into the
oblivion of despair as Judas did. Peter maintained the precious truth that
he
had known the Lord and found salvation in Him, and he was able to endure to
the
end in this faith, through his selfless love of the Redeemer. Ultimately,
it
was this gift of love, learned from Christ Himself, that transformed Peter
from
the simple fisherman into the man of faith, Christ's first vicar on earth
SAINT PAUL
ALL the first Christians were necessarily missionaries, but one outshines
them
all; Saint Paul, a man whose eloquence and zeal flooded the pagan world with
the
name and message of Christ. He was named Saul by his Jewish parents, who
were
Roman citizens in Tarsus, the capital of Cilicia in southeast Asia Minor.
The
parents were members of the strictest of the Jewish sects, the Pharisees,
and
reared their son in rigid conformity to Pharisaic teachings. Immensely
talented
and energetic, Saul absorbed everything he was taught-including his father's
trade of tent-making. Proud of his brilliance, his parents sent him to
Jerusalem to study under the celebrated teacher of the law, Gamaliel. Saul
had
probably completed his studies and returned to Tarsus by the time Christ
began
His public life; he does not mention being in Palestine until after Christ's
Ascension, at the stoning of Saint Stephen. By then, Saul was a fiery
defender
of Jewish orthodoxy, contemptuous of Christians and eager to wipe them out
as
corrupters of Judaism. He watched with approval as life was crushed out of
Stephen, and then started his own career of persecution.
His own words, as reported in the Acts of the Apostles, best describe his
activities: ". . . I then thought it my duty to do many things contrary to
the
name of Jesus of Nazareth . . . . many of the saints I shut up in prison,
having
received authority from the chief priests to do so; and when they were put
to
death, I cast my vote against them; and oftentimes in all the synagogues I
punished them and tried to force them to blaspheme; and in my extreme rage
against them I even pursued them to foreign cities " (Acts 26:9-11).
One of these cities was Damascus, where Saul wanted to arrest the
Christians
and bring them back to Jerusalem for trial. The journey there was the most
critical of his life; this is his description of it: ". . . as I was on my
way
and approaching Damascus, suddenly about noon there shone round about me a
great
light from heaven; and I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me,
'Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute me? And I answered, 'Who art thou,
Lord?
And he said to me, 'I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou art persecuting.' . .
.
And I said, 'What shall I do, Lord?' And the Lord said to me, 'Get up and go
into Damascus, and there thou shalt be told of all that thou art destined to
do'
" (Acts 22:6-10). In this momentous encounter, Saul's life was shattered
and
re-made. He went to Damascus, was baptized by a holy Christian named
Ananias,
and then retired to the desert of Arabia to meditate and to prepare himself
for
his future work.
About three years later, Saul returned to Damascus and began preaching his
new
faith. His change in allegiance caused a sensation, of course, and the
enraged
Jews plotted to kill their former comrade. Saul escaped by being let down
over
the city walls in a basket, and then he visited Peter in Jerusalem and
learned
many details of the life and sayings of Jesus, and the practices of the
Christian community. For a time Paul tried to preach the gospel to the Jews
and
at the same time escape their vengeance. Then he went back to Tarsus for a
few
quiet years, where in lonely prayer and thought was forged the profound
understanding of the mystery of Christ that would influence Christianity
forever. After another visit to Jerusalem, he finally came to Antioch at
the
request of Barnabas. It was from this city that Paul (he began to use the
Roman
form of his name about this time) set out on his first missionary journey.
Between the years 45 and 58, he made three of these trips with various
companions, including Saints Barnabas, Mark, and Luke, visiting the major
cities
of Phoenicia, Asia Minor, Greece, and Macedonia. His procedure was always
the
same: to confront the religious leaders of the people, usually in the
synagogue,
and boldly preach the message of Christ to them. Often enough, his reward
was a
stoning or whipping, with expulsion from the city, but despite opposition he
made scores of converts and left the areas dotted with firmly established
Christian communities. He preached to the gentiles and supported Peter's
decision at the Council of Jerusalem to make Church membership easier for
the
gentiles by emancipating them from many provisions of the Jewish law. At
the
end of his third journey, Paul returned to Jerusalem, where he was arrested
by
the Jews as a transgressor against their law. He would have been put to
death,
but by appealing to Caesar, as his Roman citizenship allowed him to do, he
made
it necessary for the officials to send him to Rome for trial. He spent two
years there, preaching to all who came to him (he was only under house
arrest),
and then was released. According to tradition, after the trip to Spain, be
revisited the churches he had established in the East and returned to Rome.
During the persecution under the emperor Nero, about 67, he was arrested and
beheaded.
This Version taken from:
http://www.geocities.com/barats2000/JuneFeasts.html#Peter
Today's Bible Quote
And sighing deeply in spirit, he saith: Why doth this generation seek a
sign?
Amen, I say to you, a sign shall not be given to this generation. (Mark
8:12)
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Chaplet of Mercy - a Rosary Devotion to the
Holy Wounds of Christ:
On the LARGE beads:
Eternal Father, I offer Thee the WOUNDS of Our
Lord Jesus Christ - To heal the wounds of our souls.
On the SMALL beads:
My Jesus, pardon and mercy - Through the merits of
thy HOLY WOUNDS.
Traditional indulgence 300 days each time.