Saints Peter and paul, Apostles 29 June 2014 (A)
A. The Bible as Guide in Life and Liturgy (Sunday Readings)
B. Reflection & Dialogue: Peter and Paul: Two different approaches to the same faith
First Reading (Acts of the Apostles 12:1-11). Now I know that the Lord did really save me from Herod.
This reading is chosen for today’s celebration because it tells how God saved the Apostle from the hands of his enemies. The episode recounted can be precisely situated in its historical context. The King Herod mentioned by name king is Herod Agrippa I, a grandson of King Herod the Great, and a nephew of Herod Antipas, tetrarch (not king) of Galilee during Jesus’ lifetime. Antipas’ half-brother Philip died in 34 A.D. and his territories were granted to Agrippa with the title of King. In 40 A.D., Galilee, the territory of Antipas, was added to this. In 36 A.D. Pilate, the Roman Governor of Judea and Samaria, was deposed and deported and in 41 A.D. these territories were given to Agrippa, thus practically restoring the kingdom of Herod the Great. Agrippa died tragically and in pain in 44 A.D., through a stomach disease according the Jewish historian Josephus; struck down by the Angel of the Lord according to the author of the Acts of the Apostles (12:20-23). The murder of James and the arrest of Peter must then have occurred between 41 and 44 A.D., probably in 42 A.D. for James. Agrippa’s desire the ingratiate himself with the Jews, in particular the Pharisees, probably led to the murder of the apostle James, brother of John. He next turned his attention to Peter. The arrest came immediately before the celebration of the Passover festivities, on the same day that Jesus was arrested. The reading stresses the prayer of the community for Peter and his release from prison miraculously by the “angel of the Lord”. Luke has already informed us in this work (Acts 5:17-21) how the angel of the Lord released he apostles from prison during an earlier persecution or imprisonment. The message shows the unity of the early Church in prayer, and God’s concern for believers in Jesus and for Peter in particular.
Responsorial Psalm (Psalm 33[34[). From all my terrors the Lord set me free.
Second Reading (2 Timothy 4:6-8, 17-18). All there is to come is the crown of righteousness reserved for me.
This is a farewell testament and testimony by St Paul, writing from prison and awaiting sentence and probably death. It is not altogether clear whether the words are from the apostle himself while still alive or from someone or some community who knew Paul’s last days well, and the course of his life, and presents historical facts faithfully, even if in a somewhat dramatized fashion. In either case this text, in memorable prose, lets us know how Paul would wish himself to be remembered, as also the person or community who has transmitted this text to us. Although in prison awaiting a death sentence, this does not take from Paul’s zeal for the spread of thr Gospel, and a little earlier he had advised Timothy, his friend, disciple and co-worker to have the same courage and zeal as Paul himself. He tells him: “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David – that is my gospel, for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained” (2 Timothy 29).Paul regards his imminent death as a sacrifice – offered to God. Today’s reading, his testimony and testament, gives a literary, almost poetical, summary of Paul’s apostolic activity. He has fought the good fight and run the race to the finish. His own letters and the Acts of the Apostles give abundant evidence of this. And the good fight was not always easy as he brought the Christian message beyond Judaism, and the limitations of circumcision and Jewish dietary and other laws, and spelled out the implications of salvation through faith for his gentile churches. On a matter of principle in this regard he withstood Peter to his face at Antioch. All this was now over, and in Rome both Peter and himself laboured for the spread of the Gospel at the very centre of the Empire, with an opening for future development.
Gospel (Matthew 16:13-19). You are Peter, and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
This incident occurred in the region of Caesarea Philippi, a city that takes it name from Philip, son of Herod the Great and half-brother of Herod Antipas tetrarch of Galilee. Philip had inherited that area through the will of his father (who died in 4 B.C.). About the year 3-2 B.C. he built his capital there, near the sources of the Jordan. In Galilee, especially after the murder of John the Baptist, people were inquiring as to the true identity of Jesus, who precisely was he. Opinion was divided. Now outside of strictly Jewish territory, and in a semi-pagan setting, Jesus puts a question to his followers on the issue, first with regard to the opinion of the populace in general and then with regard to their own. Simon Peter answers on behalf of the Twelve. According to Mark’s gospel he professes that they believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Jewish Messiah, a conclusion that they would easily have arrived at from their companionship with Jesus, coupled with a prevailing Jewish belief on the hoped-for advent of the son of David. In Jewish expectation, presumably shared by Simon Peter and the Twelve, the Christ, the Messiah, was a this-worldly, figure, part of Israel’s history. With regard to the term, matters changed profoundly with the death and resurrection of Jesus and his ascension to the right hand of the Father. The Christ was no longer merely a this-world figure. He was the Son of the living God. And this is exactly how Peter professes the faith of the Twelve in Matthew’s Gospel. They believed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. And in Matthew’s Gospel (not in the others) Jesus replies that this profession of faith did not come from natural observation (“flesh and blood”) but from a special revelation of the Father in heaven. As we have it in Matthew’s Gospel, Peter’s profession of faith is probably a reformulation of the initial one at Caesarea in t he light of post-resurrection belief.
Peter’s original and true name was Simon Bar (son of) Jonah. This was an Aramaic name. Jesus changed it to the Aramaic name Cephas, an Aramaic word which means “rock”, petra in Greek and Latin, to give the new name Petros (Greek), Petrus (Latin), and the English name Peter. Simon or Simon Peter is occasionally referred to by his Aramaic name Cephas in the New Testament (for instance John 1:42; 1 Corinthians 1:12;’ Galatians 1:18), but it never became a Jewish or Christian name. Jesus gave this change of name to Simon Son of Jonah to indicate that he was in some sense about to build his Church on him, on Peter the rock. The true, and only, real foundation of the Church, of course, is Christ, but a special position is promised to Peter. And the Church itself will be a rock against which the forces of hell (“the gates of hell”) will not prevail. Peter is given a certain power of judgment (“to bind and to loose”), a power later given to all the apostles (Matthew 18:18), just as on Easter Sunday they will be given the power to forgive sin (John 20:24). This honour conferred on Peter is in keeping with the charge later given top him to feed Christ’s lambs and sheep.
B. Reflection & Dialogue: Peter and Paul: Two different approaches to the same faith
Sometimes, especially from the Reformation onwards, Peter tends to stand for the conservative and Paul for the progressive, as if Peter and his heritage (especially the Church of Rome) were to be regarded ass conservative and Paul and his heritage as progressive, open to new ways. This, of course, is not in keeping with the New Testament evidence. We are all aware of the good fight that Paul fought to have the good news of the Gospel made available to the Gentiles without circumcision or the Law of Moses. When Paul believed that Peter had fallen short of the practice required on him in this regard he resisted him publicly to his face in Antioch. But that of a conservative is not the image of Peter we find in the New Testament, but rather that of a humble person, conscious of having denied his Master, a person who understood and followed the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It was Peter who first brought pagans into the Christian community without circumcision or adherence to Jewish dietary or other laws, and this before Paul had begun his missionary activity. He defended Paul’s special mission to the Gentiles. The two traditions, that of Peter and Paul, come together in the New Testament letter that bears Peter’s name. Both Peter and Paul preached the good news in Rome, and sealed their witness to Christ with their blood. Paul was as firm to fidelity to the faith, and the deposit of faith, as Peter would ever have been. Both of them continue to speak to us in these days of ecumenism, urging us to move forward towards unity in Christ as is indicated, and permitted, with that fidelity to those two great heroes of our faith, different in approach but united in essentials.