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| St. Peter |
(Second Sunday of the Year (B): This homily was given on
January 14, 2018 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond
Suriani. Read 1 Samuel 3: 3b-10, 19; 1
Corinthians 6: 13-20; John 1: 35-42.)
[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Second Sunday 2018]
Let me begin my homily today with a poem. It’s entitled, “What Did You See?”
What did you see in me?
Lord, what did you see in me?
On the day you drove me to my knees,
Filled my bark with fish abundantly,
What did you see in me?
Did you see one who would thrice deny you,
Betray you out of fear?
Did you see a reed bending in the wind
When danger came too near?
Did you see my many stumbles?
Did you see my countless falls?
Did you see me turning away
Despite your constant calls?
Did you see my words of anger—
Thoughts tempting me to hate?
Did you see the taker of Satan’s part,
Turn, for a moment, from heaven’s gate?
Did you see that you would name as ‘Rock’
A man more like the shifting sand?
Did you see that I, being asked to follow
Would often refuse to take your hand?
Yes, Lord Jesus, these you saw,
And clearer still than I can know.
But ne’er did you abandon me,
Despite my wish at times to go.
You saw the cross, embraced it,
Gave your life upon the tree.
Healed, transformed, forgiven—
Your blood has made me free.
And so, dear Lord, I praise you,
In your endless love for me;
For in my deepest darkness,
You saw what I could be.
I wrote that poem
about a year ago, as I was reflecting on the life of St. Peter. Peter’s a biblical character that almost
everyone can relate to—because he’s such a great representative of fallen
humanity. Prior to the crucifixion and
resurrection of Jesus, Peter had some moments of incredible brilliance, when he
said and did the right thing—in some cases the best thing. But he also had moments of abject failure (as
the poem indicates), when his character flaws led him to say and do the wrong
thing. And it seems that Peter had the
ability to go from one to the other in a matter of minutes. At Caesarea Philippi, for example, he
identified Jesus as the Messiah, and our Lord called him “blessed”; then a few
minutes later he objected to the upcoming crucifixion of Jesus, and our Lord
called him “Satan”. At the Last Supper,
he professed his loyalty to Jesus (“I will die for you, Lord!”); then, only a
few hours later, he denied three times that he even knew Jesus!
And yet our Lord
chose this man to be the leader of his apostles and the visible head of his
Church here on earth! I often wonder,
later in his life did Peter ever ask the Lord that question in prayer: “What
did you see? Lord Jesus, what did you
see in me? You knew the kind of person I
was: weak, impulsive, fearful. On the day
you gave me the name ‘Cephas’—‘Rock’ you knew that I was anything but a
rock! I was more like a reed swaying in
the wind. So why did you choose me and
not one of the others?”
The last stanza of my
poem I think gives us the answer to that question. I put these words on Peter’s lips: “And so,
dear Lord, I praise you, in your endless love for me; for in my deepest
darkness, you saw what I could be.”
Bishop Fulton Sheen
used to say that God has two images in his mind of each and every one of us:
the image of the person we are right now (with all our sins, faults and
weaknesses), and the image of the person he knows we can become if we allow his
grace to change and transform us.
Interestingly enough Bishop Sheen always added the point that in the
case of the Blessed Mother, there’s always been only one image in God’s mind.
Unlike us, she was perfect.
Because she was free from all sin, she was everything that God called
her to be.
The rest of us are
like Peter.
Catholic author
Matthew Kelly talks a lot about striving to become “the best version of
yourself.” That, he says, should be the
goal of every Christian’s life. But,
strictly speaking, it’s a goal that’s unattainable here on this earth, because
we’re all sinners. The only human person
who was the BEST version of herself was our Blessed Mother—because she never
committed a personal sin.
And yet, if you strive for perfection, it is possible in
this life to become a BETTER VERSION OF YOURSELF! That’s a goal that everyone can reach. It’s even possible to become a MUCH BETTER VERSION OF YOURSELF, which
is what Peter and the other canonized saints of the Church became.
Today’s readings give
us some insights on how to do this. In
the first reading, Samuel says to God, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is
listening.”
If you want to be a
better version of yourself, you need to listen to God as he speaks to you—especially
through his Church—and you must make the effort to obey (neither of which is
too popular these days. Most people
would rather talk than listen, and very few want to obey God—or anyone else in
authority, for that matter).
Our second reading
from 1 Corinthians 6 is about chastity and purity (two other unpopular things
in the modern world). St. Paul says,
“The body is not for immorality, but for the Lord…. [So] avoid immorality….Do
you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?...Therefore glorify
God in your body.”
Here we’re reminded
that becoming a better version of yourself involves fighting against your lower
nature—and that’s a constant battle for most of us. But it’s a battle worth fighting! So we must never give up!
And finally in the
gospel, Andrew and another disciple (probably John) begin to follow Jesus, and
they spend most of the day with him. The
text says, “So they went and saw where Jesus was staying, and stayed with him
that day.” This is a reminder that if
you want to be a better version of yourself, you have to spend some time—some
quality time—with the Lord. And you need
to do it often! Having a regular, daily
prayer time, in other words, can’t be an option. It needs to be a priority—along with Sunday
Mass.
Peter, thanks be to
God, did all these things. He listened
to Jesus, he obeyed Jesus, he fought against his lower nature (especially when
it came to his temper), and he built his life on prayer and the Eucharist. And
so, in spite of all his weaknesses and failures—that we see so clearly in the
gospels—he eventually became a saint.
“And so, dear Lord, I
praise you, in your endless love for me; for in my deepest darkness, you saw what I could be.”
God also sees what we can be, regardless of what our past
has been, if we follow the example of Peter—the man who eventually became our
first pope.
