South Texas Catholic (Corpus Christi, Tex.), Vol. 25, No. 24, Ed. 1 Friday, June 29, 1990 Page: 5 of 12
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Texas Gulf Coast Register/South Texas Catholic and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the UNT Libraries.
- Highlighting
- Highlighting On/Off
- Color:
- Adjust Image
- Rotate Left
- Rotate Right
- Brightness, Contrast, etc. (Experimental)
- Cropping Tool
- Download Sizes
- Preview all sizes/dimensions or...
- Download Thumbnail
- Download Small
- Download Medium
- Download Large
- High Resolution Files
- IIIF Image JSON
- IIIF Image URL
- Accessibility
- View Extracted Text
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
June 29,1990-5
sir
LIVING THE FAITH
‘Lord, you know I love You’:the feast Peter
By Pamela j. Edwards
STC correspondent
Sometimes the plaster gets a little thick on our saints. So
docs the sentimentality. They line the shelves of Catholic
book stores, spick and span with paint, pre-packaged sanc-
tity, and their easy ID symbols: St. Francis (birds). Si.
George (dragon), St. Jude (flame sprouting from his fore-
head).
Their faces are familiar to us from the nursery to the
grave. How many of us still have our childhood picture of
the guardian angel? How many keep a saint taped to the
office typewriter to field a sudden crisis? So familiar are
these holy men and women, even stereotyped, that we
forget they were human, too. We arc comfortable with
them. Too comfortable.
However, a real saint is never '.omfoftable. It’s practi-
cally part of the job description. They upset their families,
they irritate their superiors, they often alarm the estab-
lished Church itself in their century'.
If we are sentimental about a saint, it’s onlv because
they’re at a safe distance from us. In the novel’ The Lute
Player, by Norah Lofts, one character listens in astonish-
ment to her sister, who swears she has seen a vision of a
saint:
“For credulity is a very variable thing. Ever since 1
could read ! had been stuffing myself with stories of the
livessnd miracles of the saints...And if I had read iu a book
that on a certain December night St. Petrondla had
appeared to a would-be mother in the cathedral in Lc
Mans, I should have found no difficulty in believing it and
should have read on, untroubled by doubt, to learn whatthe
saint had done or said.
“Bui <0 read a thing in a book and to have it told you by
somebody whom you have just seen eating supper, some-
body you know- well, somebody you suspect of having
taken a tittle nap, are two very different things--which is,
! suppose, why all saints and mystics seem to suffer from
the cynicism of their family circle.”
Saint Paul
s week we celebrate the feast of two saints who are
nbediment of the uncomfortable, the challenging,
tensely human: Peter and Paul. Saints who challenge
med like a man,
afthc earliest years of the Church, Paul has been
S Fo, someone will say 'His tellers arc
f ......f.,i hni hi« hndilv oresencc is weak, and
Saint Peter
a little foolishness from me! Please put up with me.”
There is certainly nothing cozy about Paul when we first
meet him in Acts. A terror to Christians, he collected the
cloaks of those who stoned St. Stephen, and applauded the
execution. He is described as “Trying to destroy the
Church; entering house after house and, dragging out men
and women, he handed them over for imprisonment."
Yet it is this man, “breathing murderous threats" on the
road to Damascus, that God converted in a iighming flash.
And certainly Ananias found God’s command to restore
Saul’s vision heavy-going, for he protested: “Lord, I have
heard from many sources about this man, what evil things
he had done to Your holy ones in Jerusalem. And here he
has authorityfrom the chief priests to imprison all who cal 1
upon Your name.’’
Yet without Stephen’s pardon as he died, “Lord, do not
bold this sin against them,” and Ananias’ unwilling obe-
dience to God’s command,: Paul’s role in bringing the
Church to the entire world might have been lost
Well! And what about St. Peter? Glance at the Ca'holic
Encyclopedia and the verbs fly out and hit the eye: Peter
demands to walk on water, he cuts off the ear of the high
priest’s servant, he pledges his allegiance to Christ in one
breath and betrays Him in the next, he weeps with repen-
tcnce. He is exasperating, endearing and he is every ore of
us. As Pogo says, “ Wc have met the enemy and he is us.”
Even after Christ's Ascension, when Peter is the undis-
puted leader of the Church and cures the sick with his very
shadow, he occasionally backslides. At Antioch, Peter
dropped his Gentile friends to avoid unpleasantness when
a group of Jews from Jerusalem came to visit.
As Paul points out with his usual astringcncy in Gala-
lions, “...1 opposed him to his face because he clearly was
wrong. For, until some people came from James, he used
to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to
draw back and separated hi .itself because he was afraid of
the uncireumciscd...Bui when I saw that they were not cn
the right road in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to
Kcphas (Peter) in front of all, ’If you, though a Jew, are
living like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you
compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”’
St. Augustine interprets this unceniably unpleasant scene
(and if you’ve been in Church ministry’ for any length of
time:, you’ve probably seen one like it), “With all the
devotion of betiign humility, Peter accepted the expres-
sion of Paul’s productive liberty to love. Peter, then, has
given an example for all lime t.o follow: all ought to allow
themselves to be corrected,,even by those who arc ex-
pected to follow them, if perchance the guides should
depart fromt the right path.”
He adds that while Christians should always be chari-
table, they should also have the courage to give and
receive correction for the sake of the Gospel.
These, then, are the very human saints upon which our
Church was founded. Wc love and honor them, not be-
cause they were impossibly perfect, but because they were
tike us, and God used tliem-virtues and vices alike-io
begin the work of His Kingdom.
As William Bausch points out in A New Look at the
Sacraments, “...at the very least, there is the sensible
realization that the Church is not an assembly of saints
awaiting with joy and confidence the SecondComing. Itis
a mixed bag of saints and sinners, of motley pilgrims.”
For it is as “motley pilgrims” that we plod along the
road to salvation. It is no coincidence that two of the most
important appealing events in the lives of Peter and Paul
took place “on the road.”
According to a legend told by St. Ambrose, Peter was
fleeing persecution in Rome when he met Christ and asked
Him, “Lord where are You going?’ ’ (Domino quo vadis?)
Christ answered, “1 am coming to be crucified a second
time.” Peter immediately turned back, realizing that the
cross Christ spoke of was reserved for himself.
Paul, of course, was literally struck down by God on the
road to Damascus in order to be convened. In a painting of
this scene by Caravaggio, the first thing you see is Paul’s
bewildered horse. The second, Paul’s servant, holding the
horse and staring down in perplexity.
It is only then you see St. Paul, the scourge of Christians,
flat on his back in the dust, his arms reaching up in agony
and suppi ication. What a contrast to the Roman conquer-
ors of the day, mounted on prancing horses with their
armies at their back! Yet this was the real starting point of
Paul’s journey of faith.
This article began by saying that saints should not be
cozy or comfortable. But they should, by all means, be
loved. Because that is what the Gospel comes down to in
its simplest terms. That is why Peter and Paul managed to
succeed.
In the Gospel for the Feast of Ss. Peter and Paul on June
29, Christ Resurrected asks Peter, “Do you love Me?”
And when Peter says, “You know that I love Y ou,’ ’ Christ
replies, “Feed My lambs.” Three times Christ says this
and three times Peter says yes. It is for their love for us that
we remember Peter and Paul, and from the very beginning
the Church has loved them in return.
During the years when Christians were persecuted, they
met in secret. The plaster walls of the room built about 250
A.D. are covered with graffiti left by ordinary people who
were devoted to Peter and Paul. Some of them simply
record that a wealthy Christian treated his poorer brothers
and sisters to a meal for love of the faith, “I, Tomius
Coelius, made a feast to the honor of Peter and Paul.”
Another scribble says that Dalmatius repaid a vow to the
saints by providing a banquet.
Saint PauLon the. road to Damascus
However, some of them are simple and moving in vaca-
tions of faith: “Paul and Peter, make intercession for-
Victor ” says one. And another touchingly pleads, “Peter
and Paul, do not forget Antoni us Bassus.”
So, on this feast of the two great pillars of our Catholic
faith, let us join our voices with our brothers ar.d sisters in
Christ all those centuries ago, “Saints Peter and Paul, do
notforgetus.” And, in memory of those saints and in their
company let us also say, “Lord, you know I love You.”
BPS
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
Freeman, Robert E. South Texas Catholic (Corpus Christi, Tex.), Vol. 25, No. 24, Ed. 1 Friday, June 29, 1990, newspaper, June 29, 1990; Corpus Christi, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth840707/m1/5/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .