Readings for the Solemnity of Sants Peter and Paul, Apostoles
There are three reasons why I like the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul. First, Peter and Paul are dead and buried, and you know what? The Church continues; it is alive and well. In your lifetime and mine, we’ve known many significant personalities in our Church. Some we loved and admired, others maybe not so much.You’ve had many parish priests in your lifetime.Some were loved, some not, but the life of the parish continued. That’s because the Church rests, not on personalities, but on our relationship to God and God’s relationship to us.
The second reason this feast is so reassuring is because it reminds me and hopefully you that we each have something significant to share in the life of the Church.Peter and Paul are considered co-founders of the Church and so are we: same Church, same mission, same Gospel, but entirely different people. Peter is a blue-collar fisherman; Paul is an intellectual, a scholar. Peter is inconsistent and keeps changing his mind and his fidelity. That sound like someone you know? Paul is driven and consistent, and besides that, they disagree. They have public fights with each other and they later write about how they disagreed.Does that sound like someone you know? Isn’t it great that we are in a Church that has so many different people and that we belong and have so many disagreements and we are still one family?That’s reassuring.
The third reason that this feast is reassuring for me is I look at Peter and Paul and they have made mistakes just like us. They made mistakes; they got it wrong; they were not perfect just like us and that’s reassuring. You know Peter’s story. Less well known is how Paul fights with his co-workers. Barnabas and Mark eventually left Paul because they could not get along with him. Yet they are part of the foundation on which our Church rests.
Peter is called a “Rock.” I couldn’t help but thing of a modern expression: “You rock!” Peter and Paul surely rocked.
And so do you
