THE GREAT PILLARS OF UNITY AND UNIVESALITY

V/​ I will turn to you O God, 

R/​ to God who gives joy to my youth

V/​ Give me the Wisdom that sits by your throne; 

R/ that I may be counted among your children

Lord, in your all-providential plan, you have led me to this moment to rediscover me in your Word and Wisdom. Aid me to make this time of meditation and prayer enriching, transforming, and liberating for my well-being and others. Amen!

THE GREAT PILLARS OF UNITY AND UNIVESALITY

By Fr. Emeka Agboeze, OCD

SOLEMNITY OF SS PETER AND PAUL

Acts 12:1-11; Psalms 34(33): 2-9; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 17-18; Matthew 16:13-19

Sunday 29th June 2025

The lives of these great apostles celebrate God’s saving grace. St. Paul declares in today’s second reading: “I was rescued from the lion’s mouth.” And in the first reading we see Peter rescued from the mouth of another lion, Herod. These divine interventions mirror a spiritual rescue operation carried out by Christ in their lives. Before they met Christ, both lived miserably although they did not know it. It was only after his salvific encounter with Christ by the lake of Gennesaret that Peter realized his spiritual misery, confessing humbly, “I am a sinful man” (Lk. 5:8), as he fell at Jesus’ feet, marveling at the piscatorial miracle which he had just witnessed. Christ saved him from the path of error, from sin, and made him a fisher of men. The same is true of Paul, zealous in his error as he persecuted the followers of Christ. His blindness when he encountered Christ reveals his spiritual condition; he was blindly being led into a pit (cf. Mt. 15:14). But Christ rescued him from that imminent danger and chose him as his instrument of evangelization (cf. Acts 9:15).

The saving grace received by Peter and Paul was a call to intimacy with Christ. Christ had told Peter at the Last Supper, “Unless I wash your feet, you have no part with me” (Jn. 13:8) – no real communion with Christ without this purification. Thankfully after his initial resistance, Peter allowed Christ to wash his feet. Caravaggio seems to refer to this moment in his depiction of the martyrdom of Peter. There, the soles of Peter’s feet are sparkling clean as the executioners attempt to lift the cross on which he has just been crucified upside-down. This seems to suggest that this moment of martyrdom was prefigured in those words of Christ at the last supper. Peter’s martyrdom was the occasion for his definitive and eternal communion with Christ. Paul’s life is also about this communion: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). He too looked forward desirously to when he would “depart and be with Christ” (Phil. 1:23-24). That moment arrived when he suffered martyrdom, beheaded during Nero’s persecution.

Their death was indeed precious, not only “in the sight of the Lord,” (Ps. 116:15) but also for Christians for whom they remain great icons, reflecting the two dimensions of the Church’s oneness: Peter, its unity; and Paul, its universality. This shows the authority they have wielded in the Church, thanks to their faithfulness to the mandate they received from Christ. Today, that authority continues to be exercised through their successors, the pope and the bishops in communion with him. But sadly, it is today that, more than ever, that this authority is consistently called into question. Opposition to this authority is often hailed as courageous and open-minded. People who think of themselves as gifted and knowledgeable today openly refuse to submit to the hierarchy. After the letter of Pope Leo the Great was read at the Council of Chalcedon, the participants chorused: Sic locutus est Petrus per Leonem (Thus Peter has spoken through Leo), reaffirming their trust in Peter’s authority as reported in today’s: “Whatever you shall bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you shall loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven.”

Albino Luciani (later John Paul I), in his Letter to St. Teresa of Avila praised her obedience and submission to this authority: “‘Daughter of the Church’ was the name you loved best.  You murmured it on your death-bed; while in life you worked hard for the Church and with the Church, even accepting a certain amount of suffering from the Church…”