Today we celebrate the feast of the apostolic princes of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. Today we celebrate the day when the holy apostle’s Peter and Paul gave the highest testimony of their faith that the crucified Jesus is alive. They let themselves be martyred in the firm belief that they would live forever with the Risen Christ. Together with the entire Christian world, let us journey in spirit to the tomb of St. Peter in the Vatican and to the tomb of St. Paul outside the walls of Rome. Saint Peter and Saint Paul – these are two wings of one eagle. They are two columns that carry the vault of a single building – the building of the Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. They were quite different personalities. It could be said that each of them was a typical representative of one of the two directions in the Church, and yet they maintained mutual respect and mutual love throughout their lives. Such an example of unity in diversity is as necessary for us today as it was in the ancient times of the Church.
The apostle Peter personifies the authority and the governing center: the papacy. Apostle Paul is a believer in individuality and personal freedom. The sign of Saint Peter is the keys of supreme power according to the words of the Lord Jesus: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of God.” Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.” Saint Peter holds in his hands the keys that guard the sacred treasures of Tradition. Saint Paul holds a book in his hand because he is the Teacher of the Nations. And he also has a sword with him, with which new paths are cut in the jungle of the pagan world and new methods are sought in spreading the kingdom of God. And with the sword, which is his sign, Saint Paul was executed for his faith in Christ the Lord. Peter could also have another identification mark, namely a rooster. I think this symbol would be very telling for our Christianity today.
About that rooster, the Lord Jesus told Peter that he would start singing when Peter succumbed to unbelief and fear. And when Peter, on that evil night when Christ the Lord was arrested, began to deny that he belonged to his followers, the rooster crowed. Three times the rooster had to crow before Peter’s speech got stuck in his throat before he stopped crowding among the enemies of the Lord Jesus before he went away and wept bitterly from shame and regret for his cowardice and lack of faith. Don’t you think that we would also need that rooster today – and a good one? That those who, under the influence of modern scribes and Pharisees, waver in the true Catholic faith would need it? That we, little-believing priests, would also need it when we prepare Sunday sermons – so that in them, we do not complain about today’s world and corrupt youth, but realize that the world was just as sinful in the time of Christ the Lord when not only the youth but the apostles themselves ran away from Jesus! One of them – Judas Iscariot betrayed Christ, the other – the apostle Peter – denied him three times and renounced him, and the other apostles fled.
Only one of the Twelve – the holy apostle and evangelist John, the Beloved of the Lord – persevered, did not run away, and went with Christ to Calvary. Lord Jesus did not have better listeners than today’s preacher has. There are no other times but sinful ones – just as today as in the past. We, priests, need Peter’s cock even today. And I think that even you, today’s Catholics, should have that rooster in front of your eyes. That you may hear his cackles when small-mindedness and unbelief come upon you. When you lose faith in God’s love. It is very good that the Gospels have preserved for us the portrait of the apostles untouched, and that some “pious censorship” has not deleted what is not an apostle to honor. It is good that we have a story in the Gospel about the fact that even the apostles knew the temptation of small-mindedness, they had moments of hopelessness, weakness, and mistrust.
So when something similar happens to us, we can trust, following the example of St. Peter, that we will get out of it, and that the merciful and benevolent God will forgive us – just as he forgave Peter for his threefold denial. So it’s about not hearing the rooster crowing in the bad moments of our lives. God’s voice calls us in many ways, and it calls us tenaciously, persistently. God’s voice is constantly calling us to get out of our bad ways, to sincerely mourn our betrayals, and then to hear again the question of Christ the Lord, which he asked Peter after his Resurrection: “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these others?” And how will you answer this question of Christ the Lord – you, me, him, each of us? I wish we could answer it with the words of the holy apostle Peter, who confessed: “Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you!” God’s love to this day has not stopped making the rooster’s voice into nets of love, with which it catches and saves not only the princes of the apostles but also you, me, him – each of us, the little fish of God’s kingdom. Therefore, I would like to give Saint Peter a rooster in his hand as a sign. And I think that St. Peter would willingly agree that we should always have the “cock’s lesson” in front of our eyes: To err is human. However, to be told and corrected is truly Christian.
Saint Peter the Apostle is for us the embodiment of the rock in which the Church is securely anchored. The Apostle St. Paul is, in turn, an instrument of the storm of the Spirit of God, which propels the Church to the forefront of human history and events. And now let’s imagine that these two people with such different personalities met. What did that mean? When these two apostles met, the fate of the young Church was decided. Will these two strong personalities bump into each other and there will be a split? Will Christ’s church split into Peter’s Judeo-Christian church of “conservatives” and Paul’s pagan-Christian church of “modernists”? But we know that nothing like that happened. When they met for the first time in Jerusalem – a rock with a whirlwind – Paul wanted to get to know Peter from his own experience and stayed with him for two weeks, as St. Paul in the letter to the Galatians. Why did Paul go to Peter? He wanted to know with his own eyes the first of the apostles, taught by Christ the Lord himself. It was from him that he wanted to gain recognition as an apostle. What do you think? Will Peter do it? Will he, a simple fisherman, trust a learned Pharisee from the famous school of Rabbi Gamaliel? Will Peter not be jealous of Paul’s achievements? All credit to Peter. When making decisions, he was guided by common sense, love, and the Holy Spirit. He shakes Paul’s hand.
All credit also goes to Paul. When a dispute broke out about the style of missionary work among the Gentiles, Paul went to Jerusalem for the second time to see Peter. Before the apostolic council, he patiently explains his rich missionary experience and achieves unity of opinion. At the third meeting in Antioch, although he reproaches Peter for allowing the will of the harvest to be imposed on him and fights hard with him for compliance with the council’s conclusions, he maintains his respect and love for Peter and calls him “the first of the apostles” and “the pillar of the apostles”. In the same way, for Peter, Paul always remained a “beloved brother”. The fourth meeting of these apostolic princes in Rome was the last. Both were brought to Rome with the same idea: to be where Christians are at their worst, where the cruel enemy of Christ, Nero, is liquidating them. It is there that they want to testify about their faith in Christ the Lord, about their faith in eternal life with the Risen One, whom they both saw alive with their own eyes. Peter was crucified, and Paul as a Roman citizen was beheaded.
Together, their blood sanctified pagan Rome as the seat of the head of the Church. Their united love gave the Holy Church solid support of Peter’s Rock and the eternal youth of Paul’s missionary zeal. The holy apostle’s Peter and Paul also give the Church today a great lesson: it does not matter the diversity of opinions as long as there is unity in love. Only when the smile among people fades, when people start frowning at each other because of different opinions, Christianity also fades away. Therefore, following the example of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, let us strive for the unity of all Christians in the love of Christ. Therefore, following the example of Saints Peter and Paul, let us love Christ the Lord with a burning heart, try to seek and find his holy will, so that one day – when our time comes – we may receive from him eternal life in perfect joy. Holy apostles Peter and Paul, pray for us!
