We’ve changed Prime Ministers. We’ve changed Commanding Officers in Afghanistan. We’re not in the World Cup. Changes seem to be in the wind.

The point I am making is that for me there are two reliable people who never change – that’s Peter and Paul who’s Anniversary Feast is celebrated this weekend.

Here’s my reflection:

The earliest disciples of Jesus were Jews who continued, after Jesus’ execution and resurrection, to observe the Jewish laws of behavior and worship. They were Jewish Christians. They felt obliged to continue Jesus’ preaching in Jerusalem in the hope that all their compatriots would accept Jesus as Messiah. They were sometimes arrested and imprisoned for promoting a hostile sect within Judaism. But they were released after a beating, time and again.

Today’s first Reading (Acts, iii: 1-10) marks a change in attitude towards the apostles. Herod had James beheaded. He had popular support. He then went after Peter, head of the apostles. In this way persecution touched the whole community of early Christians. They were to experience the same ordeal as their Master. They would seem to be deserted as was Jesus. But, they would also be delivered by God as was Jesus. Happily, Peter’s arrest and deliverance occurred around Passover time when all faithful Jews were remembering their ancestors’ deliverance from Egypt. These distressed disciples, assembled in prayer, powerfully interceded on behalf of their leader. It was God’s plan, despite appearances, to keep his church free from the power of evil. The symbolism of this event is more important than the historical details.

The Responsorial Psalm, “The Lord has set me free from all my fears” (Ps. 33), links the two main Scripture Readings. On a personal note, I have been blessed to have been in a parish named after Saints Peter and Paul from 1973 until now! I have wondered over and over why Peter and Paul, the twin pillars of the church, were never separated in either the ancient liturgy or in iconography. It is as the Glennstal missal notes, “Between institution and charism there must always be dialogue, even if, at times it leads to tension, for the Church must progress in the knowledge and practice of truth.”

In the Gospel from Matthew (Matt., xvi: 13-19), we have the well known incident when Jesus commissioned Peter as “Rock” and “door-keeper”. Later, after the resurrection, ascension and Pentecost, Our Lord commissioned Paul as, “my chosen instrument to bring my name to the pagan nations”. The earliest Church was both conservative, out of sensitivity to the Jewish Christians and innovative out of sensitivity to the Greek Christians.  There was tension between the two parties. Peter was eventually convinced that there had been two Pentecosts: one for the Jews in Jerusalem, another for the pagan family of Cornelius at Caesarea. Paul soon reported to Peter and the Church at Jerusalem that the spirit was at work wherever he preached to non-Jews far from Jerusalem. Local churches in our own day need to be faithful to both Peter and Paul by keeping the faith and adventurously sharing it with other.

RJM