Homily for the Morning Mass on the Feast of St Peter and St Paul
Readings for Year A: Acts 12:1-11l Psalm 33; II Timothy 4:6-18; Matthew 16:13-19
Happy Feast Day! This is a wonderful feast for the whole Church. Why? Well – we are celebrating something really central to all Christians and specifically our Catholic Faith. In honouring the apostles Peter and Paul we are not just celebrating the foundation of the Church on the apostles but we are honouring everything they were about. Christian values, human values: great courage, generosity, integrity, and ultimately the final sacrifice through unswerving commitment to Christ and all he stands for. And I think at this time, as we move out of this experience of lockdown, which has been so traumatic for so many, these are human values we are called to treasure all the more.
Reflecting on these last few weeks, and our beginning to welcome people back to church, I’m struck by how so many have either said clearly or intimated that this has been a time to take stock of where we are in life. We have come through a journey which has been marked by all sorts of emotions: fear and uncertainty has been very strong from the beginning but as the weeks have unfolded I’ve heard people say they’ve had time to think about where they are in life and also more generally how the world is going. Through loneliness, emptiness, sickness, bereavement, anger at apparent injustice, questioning where God can be in all this, questioning why this is happening to us, there have been signs of refocus on what matters, an awareness of our need to care more for our planet and our sisters and brothers who share it, a desire to stand up for what is right against discrimination, and as we are starved of eucharist many have lived out the eucharist in care for others, especially the most vulnerable.
Christianity teaches us what it is to be human because Christ teaches us through his very being what it is to be more human. And the saints we celebrate who first preached this religion preached it not so much with their words as through their lives. They teach us what it is to be Christian, to be good human beings, and they lead us to pass this on as we strive to follow the great example of their life and ultimately of how they gave their lives so others might have life.
Peter and Paul, as so many martyrs down the ages, gave their very lives for Christ. Their death allowed the Christian religion to become established in the Roman Empire and so to grow and to flourish. Red vestments remind us – as with all of the apostles and so many Christian martyrs down the centuries since - that Peter and Paul shed blood for their faith in Christ so we might have life.
But it is also the example of their life and their writings that inspires us. Peter and Paul, sent out by the Lord, preached the Gospel with such inner conviction through their actions and through their words. In fact we know quite a lot about their personal faith in the Lord – and the readings today remind us of this: in the Gospel we have St Peter’s confession of Faith: this is Peter proclaiming the basic faith of the Church in which he is put in charge – that the Master he has been following is more than just another prophet, more than the one who shows us the way to God, but that Jesus is the Christ, is the incarnate God, God present in our midst. Peter is in every way human like us. He had serious doubts and uncertainties but he comes through them and finally professes who the one he has been following truly is – nothing less than the human face of God – God in his midst who comes to bring a new reign of freedom, reconciliation, a kingdom of justice and peace, a kingdom where no one is excluded but all are loved and treasured on account of the dignity they have as children of God. And Peter needs to be taught what that kingdom entails, the cost of discipleship, as he grows as a human being like us. He is in awe at him at the transfiguration but he needs to learn as he comes down from the mountain to walk on to Jerusalem – to be tested by life, to turn away again, to learn that only through sacrifice and suffering he can truly proclaim faith in a God who is really truly human. So St Peter, the rock on which we build our Faith is full of twists and turns, the denial, yet the courage to put himself on the line.
And what of St Paul? A man who has a sudden conversion experience, the original Damascus moment when he realized how he needed to change direction in life. What lay behind that conversion moment? Surely, I would like to think, soul searching, questioning, yearning for something more in life. Paul’s faith is, after that conversion experience, absolutely focused. It is a faith in Christ crucified, in the power of the cross over suffering, death, denial of God and of tall that is good. It is a recognition of the light that is to be found in a life built on integrity and truth. In his homily announcing the opening of the Pauline Year just a few years ago Pope Emeritus Benedict reminded us how inspirational that faith was. Paul had formerly been such a violent persecutor of Christians yet was so dazzled by the light that, as Benedict puts it, he ‘changed sides to the Crucified One’. So powerful was this experience of seeing the power of the cross of Christ that St Paul dedicated his life, his work, and ultimately won the crown of martyrdom, for the Lord.
There is no better way to begin to understand St Paul than to turn, as he did following his own conversion, to Christ in his cross. So clear was Paul’s insight into the saving mysteries of God’s love for us that he was impelled to preach this so powerfully in all his letters. Paul wants to show us how the cross unleashes ‘the power of God’, a vital force which promises new life for all, pagans as well as Christians, if they too convert to him. Not a bad place to start is his letter to the Romans where Paul proclaims that Christ died ‘for our transgressions and was raised for our justification’ (Romans 4:25). If Christ had not then been raised, says Paul in his first of two letters to the Corinthians, ‘you are still in your sins’ (1 Corinthians 15:17). The cross takes away our sins. But this is not the end. The cross opens a path from spiritual death to glorious new life. Through Jesus’ cross and resurrection, he says in various places in his writings, we become a ‘new creation’.
Total conviction and commitment in two human beings who became the bedrock of our faith. Weak men who became strong. Doubters who became men of great faith. Men who searched for something more in life and found it in the one who is the way, the truth and the life, Jesus Christ. Ordinary human beings who strove to bring the values of the kingdom of God to our world and left us an example through their life and their death.
So where are we going in our lives? What are we learning from this time, a gift to us to take stock, to reflect on life, to hear the call to renewal and conversion, to become apostles of our own age? What will I do for God who in Christ has given all for me?
Fr Dominic Robinson SJ