SOLEMNITY POSTPONED IN ENGLAND
OF THE HOLY APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL
SUNDAY, JUNE 30, 2024
AT QUARR ABBEY, ISLE OF WIGHT
The world is running in dangerous ways, dear brothers and sissters, as wars are increasing in many places. Even in the Church conflicts and antagonisms are developping. The gates of the underworld are prevailing against us everywhere and we are looking for a true peace and a secure stability. Thanks be to God, the Gospel we have just heard gives us some hope and serenity: “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church” (Mt 16, 16). This rock is the faith of saint Peter, confessed more than 2000 years ago at Caesarea Philippi, which we profess together today: “You are the Christ, he said, the Son of the living God!” On this faith we are firmly settled, facing the assaults of the Prince of this world.
We believe in Jesus Christ, Son of the living God. This knowledge does not come from us, it does not come from Peter, but, as Jesus himself said: “Simon, son of Jonah, you are a happy man! Because it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven”. So, our faith, our knowledge of Jesus comes from the Father, as he also said: “No one knows the Son but the Father” (Mt 11, 27). The first source of our faith is the knowledge that the Father has of his only Son, the “word” he pronounces eternally when he begets him saying: “This is my Son, the Beloved; he enjoys my favour” (17, 5). Peter’s confession: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!” is very similar to the eternal word of the Father: “You are my Son! Today I have begotten you”, as Psalm 2 sings (v. 7; cf. Mk 1, 11). When we confess with Peter: “You are the Son of the living God”, we participate in the knowledge of the Father begetting his only Son. That is our deep joy, the rock on which we can remain.
You can see these two columns, the two arches which open up the sanctuary of this church, as they do in the ancient basilicas in Rome. They symbolize Peter and Paul, the columns of our faith. Both of them received from the Father the knowledge of his Son: we have just heard that about Peter. Let us turn to Paul. Relating his conversion, he writes to the Galatians: “You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the Church of God and was trying to destroy it. But when God was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the nations, I did not immediately consult flesh and blood”; the two same words used by Jesus (1, 13.15-16). As Peter, Paul received from the Father the revelation of his Son. Jesus Christ became for him the whole of his life, as he writes to the Philippians: “Because of the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, I count everything else as loss. For him I have accepted the loss of all other things” (3, 8).
In these very troubled times, let us remain in the peace and the strength of that faith whose heavenly roots are in the heart of our Father, and let us say to Jesus as well as to Peter: “To whom shall we go? You have the message of eternal life” (Jn 6, 68), the surpassing value of knowing our Lord Jesus Christ, revealed to us daily by our Father. Last Sunday we heard how Jesus stilled the storm, rising from his sleep. In the storms we may endure, let us remain in the boat, his boat, the boat of Catholic Church, and let us find our cushion close to Jesus’s. Amen.