Reflection on Saints Peter and Paul: Unity and Mission

As the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Fr Edmund Power reflects on the dynamic relationship between the two great Apostles and patrons of Rome, and their significance in the Church.

On a wall along the road that runs from the St Paul Gate in Rome to the basilica where the body of the Apostle of the Gentiles is enshrined, there is a memorial stone that recalls the place where, around the year 67 AD, Peter and Paul bade farewell as they were led to martyrdom, Peter north to what is now the Vatican and Paul south to a place of public execution now called Three Fountains.

It is a singular touch of the divine providence that the city of Rome and the Universal Church should be under the patronage of not one but two patrons. And what diverse personalities! On a natural level these two would never be friends: Cephas, the forthright fisherman and husband from a small lakeside town and Saul, seemingly arrogant, self-confident, highly educated, well-travelled, and urbane. Yet together, as Peter and Paul, they would be the chosen of the Lord, to proclaim His message to Jews and Gentiles alike, representing a universality and welcome that is so often lacking in our fragmented world of many exclusions.

Today’s Gospel recounts the commissioning of Peter and the promise of the Lord: On this rock — a play on his new nickname — I will build My church. Impulsive and insecure Peter, in a manifestation of grace rather than merit, will provide a stable core for Christ’s work. In that stable core and point of unity, we find the vocation of all Peter’s successors down to our own Pope Leo. Many of the popes were, of course, dodgy figures on a human level, but that has not blocked the operation of divine grace: the powers of death shall not prevail against it.

If Peter stands for the firm centre, Paul represents the dynamism of mission, the outreach, the movement away from comfort zones to the peripheries, as Pope Francis put it. The second reading today allows us to hear the voice of an aging Paul at the end of his life who, after many trials and sufferings (Jesus had already said, I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name, Acts 9:16), says with confidence, The Lord stood by me and gave me strength to proclaim the message fully, that all the Gentiles might hear it.

Peter and Paul, therefore, symbolize two dimensions of the Christian life, the stable centre and the missionary energy. Each of us is called to emulate, according to our diverse circumstances, elements of these two dimensions. But the great Apostles of Rome propose something else, something that Paul recognized in his theology of the Body of Christ: that the Church will always be a unity in diversity and a diversity in unity. The dynamic relationship between the unity and diversity requires constant effort and openness, discernment and welcome, breadth of vision and firmness of purpose.

According to the source: Vatican News.