Year A
Discover the deeper meaning and connections found in this week's readings, through these great commentaries written by our priests.
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GOD CHOSE THE WEAK TO SHAME THE STRONG
During the Great Jubilee Year of the Church in 2000, I was one of the seminarians from Nigeria chosen to participate in the Seminarians’ Jubilee with Pope St John Paul II. As a first-year seminarian in the Major Seminary, it was the first time I had travelled to Rome and I was visibly excited. Four things stood out for me during that trip: The Audience with Pope St John Paul II, Mass and Adoration at St Peter’s tomb, Visit to Tre Fontane where St Paul is acclaimed to have been beheaded and Vespers with Pope St John Paul II at St Paul’s Basilica Outside the Walls. Although I was 18 years at the time, I was mesmerised by those four experiences since they linked all of us who were there to the wonderful witness of St Peter and Paul. During Vespers in the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls, Pope St John Paul II in his weak but resounding voice, asked us all to take the experiences of those two weeks back to our different countries and to become the Peters and Pauls of the 21st Century.
Saints Peter and Paul have not always been the saints we now know them to be. St Peter was a native of Bethsaida and the son of Jonah. He was uneducated, married and a mere fisherman. He was impulsive, a man of little faith, denied Jesus three times, went back to fishing after the death of Jesus, and got angry when Jesus asked him three times to profess his love for Him. In fact, if any serious company was in search of a CEO, Peter would never be considered. Yet, it was on such a ‘car-crash’ of a person that Christ in today’s Gospel, built His Church on, after Peter’s confession of Him to be the Christ, the Son of the living God as we hear in today’s Gospel. Saint Paul on the other hand, was a native of Tarsus, a Jew, and a Roman citizen. He was highly intelligent and at a young age was sent to Jerusalem to be taught by the greatest of Rabbis at the time – Gamaliel. A tent maker by trade, very considerate but a zealot. With his skills and intelligence, if nations wanted a DIPLOMAT, Paul fitted that very well; but becoming a FOOL for Christ was never in the picture. The faith whose followers Paul once persecuted, was the same faith he suffered and laboured for, as we encounter in today’s Second Reading.
My friends, before us are two of our brothers – Peter and Paul, who did not allow their weaknesses and limitations to stop them from encountering Christ, and being changed by Him into missionary disciples even to the point of sacrificing their lives for the sake of the Gospel. Like Saints Peter and Paul, lets us look beyond our weaknesses and limitations, and beyond our sins and betrayals. Let us look to the Lord who is always there for us and is asking us to trust Him as we hear in today’s First Reading. Let us put out into the deep today with the certainty that He will be with us as He was with Saints Peter and Paul.
SAINTS PETER AND PAUL
The two names belong together, like eggs and bacon, or strawberries and cream: Peter and Paul were made for each other. And yet, they are so different: the bluff, straight-talking fisherman, the complex, subtle Pharisee. It comes as no surprise to learn they did not always see eye to eye. Yet again, they are the two great pillars of the one Church of Christ.
Peter is the porter, the keeper of the keys. So often the first to speak, his confession of faith is the fount of all enduring Christian dogma. When required to feed the flock of Christ, he is made guarantor of the sacraments, and especially the Eucharist, the bread of God. And when commanded to tend the sheep, he becomes the source of the Church's Law, the stable framework in which every Catholic is free to live a truly Christian life. Peter is a rock, a place of fixity, firm ground.
Paul is different. Paul is a charismatic teacher. The Apostle has a quick and mobile mind, always seeking to see more. He is hard to follow. And, as Peter recognized, he wrote some things hard to understand. Paul is not a rock; he is living water or a flame of fire, always on the move. Whether travelling round the churches, or being caught up to the third heaven, he is ever straining forward, never thinking he has reached the end of the road.
The Church always needs a Peter, always needs a Paul. They live in a creative tension, live out a dynamic unity. Here is the mystery of the Church, which contains the mystery of the Divine life, something which shatters the illusory consistency of any merely human construction.
BIDDING PRAYERS
Let us pray for Leo our Pope, that the voice of Peter may be heard in his voice, the Word of God in his words.
Let us pray for the mission of the Church, that the Gospel which Paul preached may be heard throughout the earth, may bring all men and women to a knowledge and love of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let us pray for the faithful departed, that with the apostles and all the saints, they may sing of the mercies of God in the eternal day.
The church's one foundation (CFE688, L830)
Faith of our fathers (CFE156, L839)
For all the saints (CFE176, L371)
He who would valiant be (CFE248, L862)
Bring for the kingdom (CFE821, L864)
Key
CFE - Celebration Hymnal for Everyone
L – Laudate
LHON – Liturgical Hymns Old and New (Mayhew, 1999)
TCH – The Catholic Hymnbook (Gracewing)
Do you have questions about the liturgy and how we are called to participate in it? Explore how the Church councils, saints, and popes have answered this key question and many more.
Every movement of the Mass is rich in meaning but we can become over-familiar with it. Rediscover the Mass and explore how it relates to the Exodus story, where many of its rituals come from, and how it makes Jesus present to us today.
