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SCRIPTURE
READINGS
|
Acts |
12:1-11 |
| Psalm |
33 |
| II
Timothy |
4:6-8, 17-18 |
| Matthew |
16:13-19 |
Father
in Heaven, you fill our hearts with joy as we honour
your great apostles: Peter, our leader in the faith,
and Paul, its fearless preacher. Each in his chosen
way gathered into unity the one family of Christ.
Through their intercession, guide your Church safely
to your Kingdom through Christ our Lord, Amen.
In
the solemn celebration of Saints Peter and Paul
we honour the apostles who in giving their very
lives for Christ made fruitful the Church of Rome.
Red vestments remind us that Peter and Paul shed
blood for their faith in Christ so we might have
life.
However,
it is not only the witness of the apostles' death
but 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.
This
past year, dedicated to St Paul to celebrate the
billennium of his birth, the Church has been focusing
on his faith in particular. In his homily announcing
the opening of the Pauline Year at this time last
year Pope Benedict reminded us how inspirational
that faith was. Paul had formerly been such a violent
persecutor of Christians but had undergone his dramatic
conversion on the road to Damascus . He was so dazzled
by the light that, as the Pope 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.
‘How
timely his example is today!' says the Holy Father.
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.
The
Pope's invitation is to go deeper into Paul's writings.
A good 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 resur-rection,
he says in various places in his writings, we become
a ‘new creation'.
What
can this mean to us today? The Church's 1965 document
on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et
Spes (Joy and Hope) explains exactly what
Paul means. The power of the cross calls us constantly
to be ‘inwardly renewed'. We are called to rise
with Christ. We are called to see clearly, as St
Paul did, our promise of eternal life, ‘called to
one and the same destiny, which is divine'. This
is the paradox of the cross. By his death Christ
has given life abundantly to us ( GS #22).
So
let us end this Pauline year by turning to the Christ
we proclaim. Maybe you would like to learn more
about St Paul 's apostolic faith or deepen your
knowledge and response to the Church's Faith in
Christ. If so, why not take a look at the many courses,
talks and retreats, available here at our Centre
( www.msjc.org.uk
) or through the Diocese's Agency for Evang-elisation
(rcdow.org.uk/evangelisation
)? Through the study of our apostolic faith
we are drawn more closely to that thirst for life
in abundance which the first apostles knew so clearly
comes only through the power of Jesus Christ's saving
presence in our world.
Fr
Dominic Robinson SJ
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