“Pillars of the Church”
Acts 12:1-112 Tim 4:6-8,17-18; Mt 16:13-19 (13/ C)
“Although they suffered on different days, they were as
one. Peter went first, Paul followed” (St Augustine)
Today we celebrate the solemnity of St. Peter and St. Paul, who were foundational
to the early Church and our Christian faith. The Apostles lived through the
initial moments of the Church’s expansion and sealed their loyalty to Jesus
with their blood. When we consider Sts. Peter and Paul, we are often drawn into a reflection of
their lives before they became committed apostles. We remember Simon, who tried
to walk on water towards the Lord and then sank when he questioned his faith,
or his denial of the Lord three times.
Or we remember Saul of Tarsus, who persecuted Christians and brought
them to trial before the Jewish authorities.
Yet each was committed to bringing the Gospel of the Lord to the center of
the world, the very capital of the Roman Empire. It is shocking that St. Peter,
a simple fisherman from Galilee, would travel to Rome. It was the Spirit of
Christ, the Holy Spirit, who sent him there. He was the head of the other
apostles, the Rock on which Jesus built his Church. He embraced death in Rome, nourishing
the soil of the Church with his blood. St. Paul was a scholar and a determined
missionary. He sought out places to proclaim the Gospel or to sustain the
proclamation made by others. He suffered continual tortures and brushes with
death for the sake of the Gospel (2 Cor 11:22-29). He was eventually killed as a Roman citizen,
beheaded, nourishing the Church in Rome.
What do we learn from these “pillars of the Church? The faith and strength
for martyrdom do not come from human capacity. It was indeed God’s grace that revealed
the revelation of his Father in heaven (cf. Mt 16:17) and made Saul recognize
Jesus, the Lord, “as the one he was persecuting”. In both cases, human freedom,
necessary for the act of faith, leans on the Holy Spirit's action. Celebrating
these two leading apostles in a single feast is a vibrant reminder that the
church needs both the formal, enduring, petrine, papal, and canonical
leadership and the more charismatic, personal, and inspirational leadership
provided by characters like Paul. Such leadership is ever ready to question old ways and
seek newer forms of bringing Christ into people’s lives today.
In one of his first interventions addressing the Cardinals, Pope Francis
told them that we must 'walk, build and confess'. That is, we must move forward
in our way of life by building up our Church and by giving testimony of the
Lord. But the Pope warned: “We can walk as much as we want, we can build many
things, but if we do not profess Jesus Christ, things go wrong. We may become a
charitable NGO, but not the Church, the Bride of the Lord.” We should also know
how to be reliable witnesses of the love of God in the venomous situations. The
best way to honor their memory is to treasure the faith that they taught and
pass it on to others as best we can.
“Whose sins you forgive, they will be forgiven them; whose sins you retain,
they will be retained.”
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