This Feast is quite remarkable: we honor two great saints, very different from one another, who even argued together on how to deal with the Gentiles joining the young Church. There was Peter, the fisherman, impulsive, wholehearted, who denied Our Lord and Paul, the Roman citizen, the intellectual, who persecuted Our Lord through His Church. However, it is what brings them togheter that is more important: they met the Risen Christ, they were forgiven, and filled with the Spirit, they fulfilled their Apostolic mission and were crowned with martyrdom.
"They were able to overcome every trial because their trust was not based on human resources but on the grace of the Lord, who delivers his friends from every evil and saves them for his kingdom." Pope John Paul II
The preface of the Holy Mass today presents this beautifully:
"Peter raised up the Church from the faithful flock of Israel. Paul brought your call to the nations and became the teacher of the world.
Each in his chosen way gathered into unity the one family of Christ. Both shared a martyr's death and are praised throughout the world."
All in our chosen way, we are called by God to build His Kingdom, not ours. May the example of Sts. Peter and Paul inspires us to stay faithful and to be united in Christ's love (however different we may be individually).
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