Peter and Paul Solemnity Homily

Cistercian Breviary

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Raymond . . .
Sent: Friday, 29 June 2012, 9:47
Subject: 

Ss Peter and Paul

Saints Peter and Paul were both called to be Apostles and both shed their blood for Christ.   But another thing they had in common was that both of them had their self confidence deeply shaken in their encounters with Jesus.  Peter was shaken by his triple denial of Jesus at the trial and Paul by his Damascus experience.  But there the similarity ends.  In fact the contrast between these two great Saints could hardly be greater. 

Peter was always one of the twelve,  – a bunch mostly of fishermen-friends who all knew each other.  Some of them were even related to each other.  Paul’s call, on the other hand, was a very solitary one, a call that left him alone; isolated from all his previous acquaintances.

Peter was simple and relatively uneducated; Paul was about as highly educated as one could be in Jewish society.

Peter was headstrong, and impulsive. When Jesus called him to walk on the water, he immediately leapt over the side. When he was faced with the mob in Gethsemani he drew his sword and struck out with it.  At the trial, when he cursed and swore that he knew not the man, it was an impulsive reaction of fear that spoke.  But the real deep Peter was the one who went out and wept bitterly over it.  

Paul, on the other hand, met crisis by withdrawing into himself in deep thought and careful analysis of the situation. For example, after his Damascus experience, he withdrew into three days of fasting and prayer.  Again, in typical fashion, when he found that his doctrine regarding freedom from the old law was being undermined by Peter and James, he didn’t just explode in self assurance of the correctness of his teaching and go off on his own way; that is how most divisions in the Church begin; no he went up to meet and consult with the other apostles and have the whole matter thrashed out among them.

Thus the two great pillars of the Church stand in marked contrast to each other and yet at the same time with a complementarity that was surely providential for the solid foundation of Christ’s Church.