Lesson from the Acts of the Apostles for the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul (Acts 12:1-11)
In those days, Herod the king set hands on certain members of the Church to persecute them. He killed James the brother of John with the sword, and seeing that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also, during the days of the Unleavened Bread. After arresting him he cast him into prison, committing the custody of him to four guards of soldiers, four in each guard, intending to bring him forth to the people after the Passover. So Peter was being kept in the prison; but prayer was being made to God for him by the Church without ceasing. Now when Herod was about to bring him forth, that same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and outside the door sentries guarded the prison. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood beside him, and a light shone in the room; and he struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying, Get up quickly. The chains dropped from his hands. And the angel said to him, Gird yourself and put on your sandals. And he did so; and he said to him, Wrap your cloak about you and follow me. And he followed him out, without knowing that what was being done by the angel was real, for he thought he was having a vision. They passed through the first and second guard and came to the iron gate that leads into the city; and this opened to them of its own accord. And they went out, and passed on through one street, and straightway the angel left him. Then Peter came to himself, and he said, Now I know for certain that the Lord has sent His angel and rescued me from the power of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.
Continuation of the Holy Gospel According to Saint Matthew (Matt 16:13-19)
At that time: Jesus came into the quarters of Caesarea Philippi: and he asked his disciples, saying: Whom do men say that the Son of man is? But they said: Some John the Baptist, and other some Elias, and others Jeremias, or one of the prophets. Jesus saith to them: But whom do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.
The Saving Words of the Gospel.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Transcription of Sermon
In the tradition of the Church, Sts. Peter and Paul are always celebrated together, for they are, as Pope Benedict XVI says, “together the fullness of the Gospel.” And at the same time, they are quite a disparate pair. One is an impetuous fisherman, and the other is a learned scholar. And no doubt other Apostles found difficulties and differences in their own cultural, psychological baggage that they brought with them into the College of Apostles. If you think of Simon the Zealot, who was a fighter against Rome, and Matthew the tax collector, who was an apparatchik of the Roman government, and, nonetheless, together in Christ, those differences are not a problem. The Church is Catholic, and therefore universal, and Christ transforms all of these things and elevates these things, and for mature followers of Christ, that’s not a problem.
St. Augustine says that the Apostles are the columns who, with their doctrine, prayer, and the example of their patience, uphold the Church. It was Our Lord who made these columns solid, for, at first, they were very weak men and could not uphold either themselves or others. And this corresponded to a marvelous design of God. If they had been strong from the outset, someone could believe that they found the strength in themselves. This is why Our Lord wanted first to show what they were made of themselves and afterward strengthened them so that it would be known to all that all their strength came from God.”
Today’s Gospel is fascinating because we see not only the establishment of the Petrine Office and Ministry, but also the place that Our Lord chose to reveal this mystery in the ongoing process of the foundation of the Church. This was in the northernmost part of Judea. It was in Caesarea Philippi.
It’s a… there’s a large rock, a massive rock. It’s a hundred feet tall, five hundred feet across. At the base of it is a cave to the pagan god Pan, and that’s where all sorts of human sacrifices were offered. Pan was a Greek god who was associated with forested areas, but also all sorts of untethered passions. Sort of a fertility offering there would be made in sacrifice to Pan. So, people would throw children and adults in there to the fire there as an offering for crops, for new life, etc. Wherever you see in paganism, it always happens, we have this correspondence of wherever there’s a fertility god, there’s always a god of death nearby. So, fertility and slaughter will always accompany each other in paganism. And right next to the Cave of Pan, to the left is the shrine to the God Emperor, as the Romans believed. And then, to the right is a shrine to Zeus. And in front of that is the field of the Sacred Dancing Goats. These were goats that would also be offered in sacrifice in the Cave of Pan.
From the word Pan, the name Pan, we get the word panic, because they believe that, even though he was somebody who incited people to all sorts of carnal sins, he was a very angry god, and he would take a siesta mid-afternoon and wake up with a shriek, and if you heard the shriek you would be cursed. They also associated the fear that people have walking in forested areas alone that they… that was panic that was Pan inciting you to angst. Well, this is the place that our Lord chose to reveal the foundation of the Petrine office and ministry.
It was a place that was forbidden. It was kind of a red-light district. It was forbidden for Jews to go there. And if a Jew did go there, they had to go through certain purification rituals in order to be re-integrated into worship again. And this is what Our Lord chooses to reveal the foundation of the papacy. Why is that? Well, that cave was also known as the Gates of Hell because of all of the pagan offerings that were there. So, Christ is going there as the Godhead who is naming His visible representative on Earth in the face of paganism, in the face of sin, in the face of every sort of disorder. Not afraid of it, but showing that He is victor over all of that nonsense.
All men, by nature, are spiritual. Why? Because we have souls. Just as because we have bodies, we are corporeal. So, when people say, “I’m spiritual but not religious,” it doesn’t really say much about the person because it’s like saying, “I have a body, but I don’t take a bath. I have a body, but I don’t feed it.” Our souls were made for worship; our bodies were made for worship. Sadly, after the fall, we’ve been alienated from God and incapable of rendering true worship to God.
The first attempts by pagans to render worship, as long as they were in accord with natural law were not rejected by God, but they also weren’t accepted by Him because it wasn’t true worship. And so, as long as they were ordered by natural law, He would send angels to receive the homage. He wouldn’t receive it because it wasn’t true worship. But they were doing the best they could. It doesn’t take long for disorder to enter into it because of our fallen nature. And as soon as disorder enters into pagan worship, the angels retract, and demons come and take their places. And that’s why Psalm 95:5 says that “all the gods of the Gentiles are demons.” So, if you in school read Greek mythology, Roman mythology, all of those gods that they mention are real, but they’re demons. Demons have appropriated the cult of all of every form of false worship. So, they’re real. What’s the solution?
The worship that Our Lord revealed in the Old Testament to the Jews was not efficacious. It was, it was not nothing, though. It was preparation for the only form of worship that would eventually be acceptable and pleasing to God, which is the Eucharist, the Mass. Why? Because it’s not made by human hands. It’s not something that man has done by his best efforts. This is true worship because it comes from God and not only because it comes from God, because God makes it happen. The priest in the moment of saying the words of consecration, speaks in persona Christi, and in doing so, God makes the consecration of the species efficacious. Without revelation, we always get it wrong.
Our Lord takes a poll from His followers. He says, “Who do people say that I am?” And they say, “Jeremiah, Elisha, John the Baptist come back from the dead.” They got it wrong. When the Apostles, after Pentecost, began to work miracles, the Pagans thought they were gods. One said, “I think he must be Zeus, and that must be Mercury.” Why? Because they just saw these men doing superhuman things through the power of God. But again, without revelation, they get it wrong. Peter receives a divine illumination in his moment. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And he says it with calm. I imagine when Our Lord asked the question, “What do people say?” It was a pretty easy answer to give. “What do you say?” All of a sudden, there was a sort of panic that entered them, not of the sort that Pan would engender, but a certain panic of nervousness. We’ve been with them for three years, because this is the winter right before the spring of the last Passover and the Passion. And now we’re on. “He’s asking me, ‘Who do I say you are?’” So, Peter doesn’t guess it right. He receives a divine illumination, and this is going to be confirmed in the next chapter in the Transfiguration where God says, “Behold my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And so, Our Lord gives us a visible head to guide us. He gives us the Apostles as the columns of the Church that He’s built on the rock of Peter. Petros means rock.
And so, thanks to Apostolic Succession, thanks to the gift that Our Lord has given us in the Eucharist and the priesthood, we are capable of realizing true worship. Why? Because God does it. It’s not our best efforts. It’s not a human work…a work of human hands. It’s Christ who makes the Eucharist real. It’s Christ who forgives sins in confession, in persona Christi, through the voice of the priest, through the hands of the priest. And so, all of a sudden, this alienation has been overcome; we are capable of rendering true worship in the Mass.
And Peter is given the Keys of the Kingdom. What does that mean? It’s a rabbinical figure for the key to unlock revelation in order to interpret scripture on the one hand, and the other, to bind and to lose, regards excommunicating and reintegrating people into the Church.
When we read the Gospel and we get to know Peter’s personality and psychology, there’s something lovable about him and something at times maddening. And we see his humility in the face of his own foibles, right? He stands on the abyss of destruction when he gets out of the boat and stands on the water, but he looks around at the waves and sees all the reasons why he shouldn’t be standing on water and begins to sink, and he says, “Lord, save me.” So, in his humility, in his despair, he reaches out to the only one who can save him; Christ saves him. But it’s not because of all of the human things, it’s not because of the three years that he spent with Christ, that he’s qualified to be Pope. It’s because of the divine initiative. He was named that. He was given that mission. It’s not something he sought. It’s a divine initiative.
And we, as children of the Church, recognized in the pope and the bishops, the successors of Peter and the Apostles, and we have a duty, a filial piety of justice and charity to pray for them.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, the Holy Ghost. Amen.
~Fr. Ermatinger