Saints Peter and Paul are not only two of the greatest examples of the Church’s mission: they are also the foundation upon which Christ established this mission. Both of them paid for their faithfulness to their missions with their lives. The First Reading speaks of Peter’s imprisonment; the epistles reveal Paul’s hardships. In the end, both became martyrs.
The wisdom of God is manifested in the very fact of choosing sinful individuals to be the cornerstone of the living, human and divine, edifice of the church. If Jesus would have chosen persons who were almost flawless, we would not have been able to as easily identify with them, thinking they and their lives of holiness were way beyond our reach. Jesus selected a rough fisher who often acted without thinking matters through, in order to show us that God can use even coarse stones to make a beautiful structure. In fact, it seems, that God prefers the rough rocks so that God can chip away at them and shape them into the form needed so that the edifice will have a firm foundation. Jesus, the Rock of Salvation, chose a man named Simon bar Jonah, and selected him to be part of the foundation, upon which all the rest of us would be built.
Peter and Paul had to go through a lengthy process to grow in their understanding of, and their relationship with, the God Who had called them to be the foundation of this new structure of God’s revelation. That should give us hope and strength. We also have to go through a lengthy process. We need to have our rough edges chipped away and our hardness molded into a form and a shape which can build on the faith of those who have gone before us and become the stable layer upon which others may be added to this living building of faith known as the church, the Body of Christ.
As we continue to come to know the Lord and Savior, whom St. Peter and St. Paul grew to know and proclaim, we, too, will become part of the communion of saints – for that is our calling and destiny. It is a process that takes a lifetime, yet a process which has already begun. We are saints, at least in the rough. We can have a similar effect on others as did St. Peter and St. Paul. Like them, as we grow in our relationship with the Master-Teacher, we will sense the need to share our faith with others so they too can be part of the edifice of God’s holy and living temple. Let us thank GOD for giving us the very human, and the very saintly, role-models in the lives of St. Peter and St. Paul.