SOLEMNITY OF ST. PETER AND ST. PAUL JUNE 29TH First: Acts 12: 1-11; Second: 2 Tim 4:6-8,17-18; Gospel: Mt 16:13-19 THEME OF THE READINGS The liturgy points out St. Peter and St. Paul, the two great Apostles of the first Christian community, to us as teachers and confessors of the faith, the two great Apostles of the first Christian community. You are the Christ, the Son of the living God, Peter proclaims on behalf of the other disciples in answer to Jesus’ question: But you, who do you say I am?. This very confession of faith is the reason why Herod Agrippa persecutes Peter and puts him in prison to please the scribes and the Pharisees (first reading). For his part, Paul, already in the evening of his life, opens his heart to Timothy in a beautiful sentence, full of meaning: I have fought the good fight to the end; I have run the race to the finish; I have kept the faith; and a few verses later, the Lord stood by me and gave me the power, so that through me the whole message might be proclaimed for all the pagans to hear. DOCTRINAL MESSAGE Today’s feast is the feast of faith: the personal faith of Peter and Paul in Jesus Christ; faith proclaimed and taught by both of them in a span of about thirty years until their death; faith confessed and witness, day after day, between persecutions and consolations until they poured out their blood in martyrdom. Personal faith. Faith for Peter is perhaps a continuous process, from his first encounter with Christ by the Sea of Galilee, until his enthusiastic cry, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God, or his humble, sincere recognition: Lord, you know everything; you know I love you. In Paul’s case, it bursts upon him, a stunning surprise on the road to Damascus. This faith in Jesus Christ that chains him with fetters of freedom, was to deepen as the years passed, and in his letters he left behind a taste of it: Life to me, of course, is Christ. The life I now live in this body I live in faith: faith in the Son of God who loved me and who sacrificed himself for my sake. Both Apostles founded their teaching, their witness and their mission on this personal, unshakable faith, stronger than death. Teachers of faith. The first part of the Acts of the Apostles shows Paul actively preaching the Christian kerygma to Jews and to pagans such as the family of Cornelius. He proclaims what he believes vigorously and sincerely; he teaches what he has seen, heard and received from his Teacher. He has nothing of his own to say, only Christ’s mystery that he imposes with the power and evidence of faith. Neither does Paul have anything to say of his own, except only what he has received. And when, in some cases he adds something that he has not received, he specifies that he does so in accordance with Christ’s Spirit, which possess him and spurs him to speak with authority. Witness of faith. Words, even the most sublime, will not be accepted if they are only words and not life. After the example of Jesus Christ, who gave his life for all, Peter and Paul were to conclude their witness of Christian life by dying for the faith in which they believed, preached and professed throughout the Mediterranean region. Martyrdom in this way comes to be the seal of the authenticity of their faith, the reliable pledge for us of the truth they communicated and bequeathed to us, and of which they are likewise steadfast and eternal pillars. PASTOral SUGGESTIONS I believe … we believe. As pastors we must transmit the Church’s faith as it found formulated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. To pass it on, and to do so with honesty and conviction, we must first make all the faith of the Church our own, making it our own with intelligence, reading, studying, and meditating on the lovely and doctrinally rich pages of the Catechism. We should make it our own with our hearts, truly loving the doctrinal, organic, complete, coherent, rejuvenated and rejuvenating body of the Catholic Church. We make it our own with our lives, in order not to be or to appear to be empty preachers, but witnesses of the eternal truth which comes to us from God and which brings us to God. Equipped with this ecclesial faith, personalized through meditation, love and witness, we will invite our parishioners with conviction to believe individually and as a community what the Church teaches us, to love those who believe, and to witness in their familiar and professional world to what they love. And we will not be afraid to proclaim the difficult truths with humility and firmness, because the Spirit himself who inspires us to proclaim them, works effectively in the faithful so that they will accept and live them. Faithful to the Magisterium. The Church is a living body that is built of living stones. We all take part in her construction, but under the guidance and supervision of those who are the successors of Peter (the Pope) and the other Apostles (the bishops). As sharers in Christ’s priesthood and collaborators of the bishops, we priests and deacons are morally obliged to listen to the voices of the Holy Father and the bishops. Let us create around them around them an atmosphere of respect, acceptance, availability, of sincere filial affection. They are men like us, but they are above all the teachers of our faith, the confessors and witnesses of the truth revealed by God in Jesus Christ, through the Spirit.
Posted on: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 13:52:19 +0000
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