THE LORD STOOD BY THEM AND GAVE THEM STRENGTH Sts Peter & Paul 2021
The readings today fill us with a sense of God’s call and nearness in all our needs. Sts Peter and Paul are pillars of the Church and yet, as we look closely at their lives we see just how human, how much like us they are. In all their humanity and weakness, God is ever near realizing the plan of salvation for all of humankind. Our faith is what opens the door and continues to accomplish this plan as much today as in the time of these great saints.
Peter, saying to Jesus in our gospel that “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” is a turning point in his own life as it is central to our own as Christians today. Flesh and blood did not reveal this to him nor do they do so to us, but it is our heavenly Father who reveals to us as He did for Peter. Recognizing that Jesus is the Christ, is the Son of the living God, is what makes the gospels come alive. The wondrous love manifest in God’s taking on our flesh, God’s sharing fully in our human condition is what transforms our consciousness and that of the world around us, whatever may be unfolding in any one of our lives.
Through this faith, Peter has become the rock on which Christ builds his Church so that the gates of the netherworld cannot prevail against it. It is faith that gives Peter the keys of the Kingdom of heaven, empowering him to bind or loose on earth in such a way that they are bound or loosed in heaven.
St Paul struggled long and hard to come to this faith. A persecutor of the Church, it took a dramatic encounter with the risen Lord, stopping him in his tracks, that brought him to see Jesus as the Messiah. Even then it took him three years in Arabia and Damascus to fully integrate his experience with his Jewish training to where he became a zealous missionary and servant of the Gospel. Faced with a God become incarnate, revolutionized both his experience and his understanding of God.
Peter has been described as “a complex figure, bold, impetuous, capable of fear, doubt, and childlike meekness,” in short, one fully human like ourselves. Hardly had Peter been declared a “rock” on which Jesus would build his Church than he was told, after objecting to Jesus’ prediction of his passion, “get behind me Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
Our first two readings this morning show us both men coming fully into their own precisely when they are asked to share in Christ’s sufferings. We heard of Peter imprisoned by King Herod and about to be executed. Then we heard of Paul saying that he is “already being poured out like a libation and that the time of his departure is at hand.” Just when both these men found themselves suffering for the sake of the gospel, the power of God is wonderfully present.
To Peter he sends an angel who awakes him. Peter’s chains fall away and they walk right through squads of soldiers who are fast asleep, to a gate that opens of itself. From Paul we heard that the “Lord stood by me and gave me strength.” “And I was rescued from the lion’s mouth.” Paul knew for sure that he would be rescued from every evil threat and be brought safely to God’s heavenly Kingdom.
The Lord Jesus is drawing each one of us into this Paschal Mystery that we are about to celebrate at this altar. The bread and wine brought to this altar are nothing less than symbols of our own lives. Whatever may be their present circumstances, we too are being called into a deeper faith like the Saints we celebrate. Through faith, the Holy Spirit overshadows each of us, making us one in Christ. As the faith of Peter and Paul are lived out in us, Jesus continues to build up the whole Church in a wonderful way.
And the powers of the netherworld cannot prevail against us for by faith we no longer think like human beings but as God does and are strengthened to do the works of God in whatever is asked of us. We become like the living Bread we eat at this table, drawing others into a loving awareness of God’s own everlasting gift of Self.
Acts 12:1-11; 2Tim. 4:6-8,17-18; Mt 16:13-19