On Tuesday we celebrate the wonderful feast of Saints Peter and Paul. Peter and Paul remind us on the two imperatives of the Church: to keep ‘the catholic faith that comes to us from the apostles’ but also to spread it throughout the world. We are Christians who have inherited a living tradition and are duty bound to share it with others. Both those things are necessary. Tradition without preaching is dead, preaching without the tradition is rootless.
One of the striking things about the early Church is the way in which the gospel message exploded across the Roman Empire. Well within a hundred years it had reached its remotest corners such as the British Isles. The Apostles we celebrate this weekend and their fellows were responsible for this because they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Peter and Paul were in no doubt about their need for this divine help: Peter had denied Christ and run away, Paul had persecuted the early Church. Perhaps if they had been less cowardly and less opinionated they wouldn’t have known their need of God?
Peter and Paul show us how God can take our weak points and transform them. On this feast day let us reflect how God will transform and build up his Church once again if only we will let him have his way. May the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul pray for us so that we can hear what the Spirit is saying to us today.