Solemnity of SS. Peter & Paul – Year B
From being an impetuous, self-concerned coward, Simon, Son of Jonah, became Peter, the Rock on which Christ built His
Church; he became our leader in the faith, the Vicar of Christ, the first Pope! He who had once been a hair’s breadth
from the mind and the heart of Judas Iscariot, became chief of the two Princes of the Apostles. He who had protested his own
sinfulness to Jesus saying, “Leave me, Lord, I am a sinful man”, and yet had groveled in that very sinfulness
when three times he said in the courtyard of Caiaphas, “Leave me alone, I do not know that man”, became the one
whose profession of faith brought words of blessing from the Heart of Jesus. And that same Jesus longed so dearly for the
reassurance of Peter’s love that he asked him three times: “Do you love me more than these others?” From
fearing to be known as a friend of the crucified, Peter himself was at last crucified near the Vatican hill in Rome for love of the Crucified.
Then there is Paul. From being a violent-tempered, zealous persecutor of Jesus and His followers, and what he himself
describes as “the worst among all sinners”, Saul of Tarsus became Paul, Apostle of the Gentiles, the fearless
teacher of the faith, the apostolic voyager, the founder of Churches. From wishing to cut out at its roots the infant Church,
Paul became one whose head was cut off that the blood of his martyrdom might give growth to the Church. It is symbolic that
tradition locates his beheading at “Tre fontane”, the “three fountains”, in Rome.
And what is the reason for this 180 degree turn-about in the lives of these two miserable men? The most compelling
answer is that each of them, in their misery, turned to the suffering Jesus for mercy and healing. It was the look of mercy
from the deep wells of the eyes of Jesus that penetrated the heart of Peter and broke it, that he might weep his way to recovery.
It was the blinding light of Jesus asking Saul of Tarsus, “Why are you persecuting me?” that planted deeply
within him the seed that would transform him into the greatest preacher of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection.
To put it another way: both these men in their misery were open to the Lord of mercy, who, while He surely made them understand
the depths of their misery, made them also experience the infinite depths of His Mercy.
We all experience all kinds of misery: as pain of all and any kind, as sin of all and any kind. Peter and Paul teach
us to look to the suffering, merciful Lord in our misery, whatever its nature, causes or dimensions, that we might
be healed. The Lord’s plans for them were not plans of condemnation, but of salvation. Indeed, that very experience
of their own misery in the light of His mercy was what enabled them to become the heroic martyrs for Christ, the Princes of
the Apostles of Christ!
For each of us, too, our misery contains the key to our glory, since the suffering, merciful Lord has no plan of condemnation
for us either, but only of salvation. All He asks is that we trust in the power of His merciful love, that we recognize the
truth about ourselves and about Him and seek to live and love His will, which is our salvation. That is the goal of
the apostolic message: to know, love and proclaim Jesus as the merciful Lord of all creation, as the source and destiny of
all that exists.
At the same time, the mercy of Christ is not to be taken presumptuously for granted. For His mercy comes to us only
through the mystery of His passion. We cannot treat lightly the shedding of Christ’s blood. Rather, what He has done
for us requires of us a like-minded response: a willingness to be faithful in word and deed to the truth of God’s
creative and redemptive will, unto the shedding of our blood.
Nothing that exists, exists by chance: “For in Him all things were created; they exist for Him and through Him.”
When Jesus took our flesh he took to Himself something that He Himself created. When we read the early passages of Genesis
we read of the order of creation, an order which proceeds from very mind and will of God. When mankind is given dominion over
creation, it only exercises that dominion in truth to the extent that it is itself subject to the Creator. Human autonomy,
or freedom is not something absolute or disconnected from God or from the order of God’s creation: rather it depends
on it, otherwise, as we have discovered to our grief through the centuries, man will tend to destroy himself and creation
with himself.
So we cannot truthfully seek the mercy of Christ in our misery if at the same time we wish to do violence to Him by
introducing or passively tolerating disorder in His creation. The quintessence of original sin, and thus of every sin, is
that man seeks the fantasy of a creation without God, without God’s order, without the truth and the laws which reveal
and protect that order, in its integrity, balance and hence beauty.
People criticize the Catholic Church for being out of date, especially when it comes to Her doctrine on moral questions.
But that very criticism is symptomatic of a mentality that has forgotten, or has never known, that what the Church teaches
in moral questions does not, or should not, proceed from the passing dictates of social or cultural behavior. The Church is
the living memory of Christ for every generation, of Christ the Creator and Christ the Redeemer.
The essential truths about human moral behavior as taught by the Church proceed from Her call and mission to remember and
proclaim Christ’s truth about man, about man and woman, about life and death, about sexuality and justice. If it is
thought that Christ can really be removed as the foundation of that truth, then effectively anything goes. And when anything
goes, everything will eventually perish with it.
The moral teaching of the Church takes what we call the natural moral law, e.g. the ten commandments, and lets the
light of Christ shine fully upon it in order that its full meaning may be brought to light and be set up as a wonderful, beautiful
vocation for the human being to strive towards. The natural law would say: “Thou shall not commit adultery”; the
truth of Christ enlightens that even further: “Even if a man lusts after a woman in his heart, he has already committed
adultery with her.” Now we all make mistakes, commit sins, in striving to live those ideals, but that makes those ideals
neither unattainable nor unrealistic; it simply means we need humility, patience and perseverance in exposing our misery to
the mercy of God, so that His grace can eventually lead us there.
The Supreme Court of the United States a few days ago, among others things, decriminalized homosexual behavior. In doing so, because of
its status in this country, it has effectively given a legal or juridical blessing to such behavior. But a legal blessing
is not a moral blessing. Unfortunately, many civil laws have simply cast aside the law of God and the moral vision of the
human person that derives from that law, a vision which inspired the founding fathers of many nations. Now, while not every
sin can or should be punished socially as a crime (otherwise we would all be in jail!), it is wholly inappropriate that a
behavior which, even socially, has been considered for centuries as morally unacceptable should now effectively be sanctioned
by the highest court in the land as if it were a mere matter of personal preference or, indeed, something to be emulated.
Undoubtedly, this is a very difficult question, and every case has to be taken individually to evaluate a person’s
real or reduced responsibility. But silence does not serve to clarify it. I do not intend to say, nor can I say, everything
on this complex matter here, but I feel compelled as a minister of the Gospel to give you at least some basic elements of
the Church’s teaching on this question. How that teaching is applied in individual cases will depend on a whole host
of factors and circumstances. But the teaching itself remains.
The Catholic Church as Mother loves all her children, whatever their state of moral or spiritual weakness
or strength. But as Teacher, She must teach them what is and what is not compatible with being a Christian, what is and what
is not worthy of Christ, so that they can mature as Christians. The Church teaches (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church,
2357-2359) that the homosexual orientation is of itself morally neutral, yet also that it is, for the many complex causes
no-one yet completely understands (2357), not in accordance with the created order (2357). God does not create what is disordered:
He redeems it! People with this orientation often suffer greatly precisely because they sense, not just a social stigma of
rejection or discrimination, which is totally unjustifiable and counter-productive, but also an intrinsic lack or brokenness
within their own spirits (2358). This is deep suffering and requires all our respect, all our assistance, all our understanding
and compassion. And we must be sincere! Our brothers and sisters in Christ who have a homosexual orientation are called, as
are we all, to holiness of life: prayer in search of close and tender intimacy with the Heart and Body of Jesus, deep devotion
to Our Lady and the saints as real, loving and concerned people, the other sacraments, the virtue of chastity, the cultivation
of healthy friendships and all other means that help one grow in the sense of one’s true dignity and inner freedom:
these are all means through which a person with a homosexual orientation can seek to live their situation in accordance with
the will of the Lord (2359).
But when it comes to homosexual behavior, the Church teaches that it is “intrinsically disordered” (2357),
for two reasons. First, because it contradicts the natural created order regarding the truest meaning of sexuality as the
expression of the complementarity of man and woman “created in the image and likeness of God”– not just
spiritually and psychologically, but also physiologically, since God also created our bodies. Secondly, homosexual behavior
closes the sexual act to God’s gift of created human life (2357). So, with the greatest respect for the highest court
of any land, let it be said that no man-made law can change the moral law of God.
Rather, we must all reach out and help one another to live as Christ teaches, but be vigilant that when we are weak
and fail –whoever we are and whatever we have done- that we do not give in to the earliest temptation
known to man, viz. to tear down the law of God and set up our own “law” in its place. For the sinner who accepts
his sin, there is always mercy; but for the sinner who makes a virtue out of his sin, either for himself and/or for others,
mercy is all but gone, since they themselves choose not change their lives as the mercy of God requires of them.
What are often called private choice behaviors are never private in this sense: if they are morally wrong, they violate
the moral order, hence the order of creation and of redemption. To put it simply, they wound Christ “in whom and for
whom all things were made” and by whom all things were redeemed, because His all-seeing eyes see with pain that the
beauty He has created for our good is being marred by the very ones with whom He wanted to share that beauty. The Cross of
Christ stands before every moral decision we make, and if that Cross is not our standard then, in the chilling words of St. Paul, “we empty the Cross of
its meaning”. That is we waste with terrible wantonness the mercy of Christ.
On this solemnity of Peter, our leader in the faith, and of Paul, its fearless preacher, each of us is called to look
at the suffering, merciful Lord for his or her own healing. And each of us is called to lead and be fearless in our homes
and communities in preserving and in witnessing to the order of creation and of redemption, sustained powerfully, as it is,
in the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God. It was for this that St. Peter was crucified and St. Paul beheaded.
Msgr. Peter Magee
Saturday, June 28th 2003, Vigil Mass at Mother Seaton’s, Germantown;
Sunday, June 29th, 10.00 am at St. Matthew’s,
DC; 12.00 noon at St. Thomas, DC; 6.00 pm, St. Raphael’s, Rockville
