While in seminary in Rome, Monsignor Ciaran O'Carroll, our professor of Church history insisted that my companions and I as a batch make a pilgrimage to the archaeological excavations below the Basilica of St. Peter. This is a visit that I recommend to all those who go to Rome, because it is through this space that one gets to encounter the bones of St. Peter. At the end of the visit through the excavated Roman necropolis, or cemetery, one reaches behind the ancient shrine that was built over the grave of the Prince of the Apostles, and here, one can see the some of the bones of St. Peter that have been preserved in little acrylic boxes.
There was something that Monsignor O'Carroll said before we made this visit, which has stayed with me until this day, and made all the difference to my visit, which I can now see was a pilgrimage. He reminded us of the words we heard in the Gospel today which Our Lord had said to Peter,
“Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! … you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” (Mt16: 17-18).
Seeing these bones, he said, he realized that these fragile bones were the rock of which the entire Church, now spread throughout the world has been built on. Let me repeat this for emphasis, the fragile bones of Peter, is what the great edifice of the church has been built on.
This should be the context in which we reflect on the lines from the second reading – Saint Paul’s letter to the Galatians – today:
God, who from my mother’s womb had
set me apart
and called me through his grace,
was pleased to reveal his Son to me,
so that I might proclaim him to the Gentiles,
My dear brothers and sisters, Saints Peter and Paul, whose precious memory we venerate today, were like us, mere men of perishable flesh and bone. And like them, we too have been set apart from our mothers’ wombs, we received the grace of having the Son of God revealed to us, not for any merit on our part, but so that we might proclaim Him to the world we live in. Some of us are lucky, we were introduced to the Catholic faith through our mothers’ milk. Others are luckier still, they were called to Christ, and set apart, as independent adults.
But if we have been set apart, if God has called us to Himself since the time we were conceived, this does not mean that Our Lord forces us to proclaim Him. He offers us the greatest gift the creator could offer, free will. He calls us to serve Him, but there is no force. If we serve Him, we do so because we wish to.
Which is why, as we see in the Gospel today, Our Lord asks Peter three times, if he loved Him. Three is a mystical number, my dear brothers and sisters, the number of fullness and perfection. To ask Peter thrice was to make sure that Peter really meant yes. It was only after he emphatically said yes that Our Lord entrusted to Peter the task to lead the church: “Feed my sheep.”
The task that was handed over to Saints Peter and Paul were not easy ones my dear brothers and sisters. Both lost their lives in the course of proclaiming Our Lord, and we too are called to lose our lives, though perhaps not in such dramatic ways – St. Peter was crucified upside down, and St. Paul was beheaded. But lose our lives for His sake we must, glorify His name through our lives we MUST, if we are to merit a place with Him and His saints for all eternity.
Sancti Petre et Paule; orate pro nobis.
(Image reference: “The Resurrected Christ with Saints Peter and Paul,” Antonis Mor, 1556 (?), Château de Chantilly, via Wikidata.)
No comments:
Post a Comment