Hello to you all. My internet has not been playing very well with another . And I can just about turn the bloody thing on. “Old dogs, new tricks”.
Anyway, today is the feast of two apostles who were responsible for the establishment of the early Church community. Peter, was hell bent on working only with the Jewish converts, while Paul insisted that the Good News should be brought to the Gentiles. The First Council of Jerusalem would make the cage match at the White Houe look like a family BBQ.
Anyway. Both these men had to come to a point in their lives that laterally broke them down. It was only then that God could begin his work with these two.
Charles Spurgeon says, “Whenever God make a man great, he always breaks him in pieces first.” Just read a little of the lives of Peter and Paul.
St. Augustine picks up with this thought. “Both apostles share the same feast day, for these two were one; and even though they suffer on different days, they were as one. Peter went first, and Paul followed. Ant so we celebrate this day made holy for us by the apostles’ blood. Let us embrace what they believed, their lives, their labors, their sufferings, their preaching, and their confession of faith.”
We, as a Church today, bask in the light of what these two men did, the sufferings they endured, and the deaths they accepted as part of what they saw as God’s plan for them.
The work of the Church is far from complete, we need only to watch the nightly news or read the paper. We are far from what the Lord had in mind. I guess we are still attempting to learn how to walk before we will be able to run proclaiming the Good News.
Peace and All Good,
Fr. Vinnie, fcm and the
Bros and Srs of the
Franciscan House of Prayer.
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