Called to Heroism
What makes a hero? Many of us might think of
people who have been heroes to us over the course of our lives. We might think of parents,
siblings, children, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, friends, etc. There is something that they
are able to do; some type of quality that they have that makes them a hero. I would argue that the most
common quality that you find in a hero is selflessness.
Today, we celebrate the
Feast Day of two very unlikely heroes: St. Peter & St. Paul. St. Peter was a fisherman.He wasn’t very wealthy. He wasn’t educated and probably didn’t know how to read or write. He wasn’t the best of
speakers. And in the Gospels, we get
the feeling that Peter really isn’t a very brave man. So how does this man become
one of the greatest Saints in the Church? How is he qualified to be
the first Pope of the Church? It is precisely because he
learned how to empty himself of himself; he learned selflessness. He let go so that Christ
could work through him. Jesus foresaw this, which is
why Peter is chosen to be the rock of the Church. It wasn’t because he had
some type of superpowers; rather, it was because he was
faithful – he was selfless. All of the early church
leaders and the Apostles all pointed to Peter as the mediator and the leader. St. Paul was a person who
argued much with Peter, but Paul always knew Peter was chosen by Christ for a
reason to lead the Church.
Paul is actually Saul’s
Christian/Roman name. Paul grew up very
differently than Peter. Paul never walked with
Christ during Christ’s public ministry. Saul was actually one of the
greatest Christian persecutors. As a Pharisee, Saul thought
that this rise of Christianity was diluting his beloved Judaism. He was a strong Pharisee,
having trained under one of the greatest Pharisees of the time, Gamaliel. The first time we hear of
Saul in scripture is actually as he is persecuting and rounding up Christians. He is at the stoning of
Stephen, the first Martyr. The folks drop their cloaks
at his feet and Saul gets lots of attention. But his encounter with the
risen Christ changes everything. He goes from being the
greatest persecutor of the Church, to the greatest missionary of the Church. He’s the first to write down
about Jesus. He’s the first to travel to
many areas. You’d think that he would
want to stick with trying to convert his fellow Jews, but he finds that many Jews
do not want to convert. He soon changes his mission
to the Gentiles (the non-Jews) and Samaritans (half-Jew half Gentile). He says that Christ came for
everyone and this New Way is for everyone.
If you read through Paul’s
letters and the Acts of the Apostles, you get a little glimpse into not only
how they lived, but ultimately how they became the most unlikely of heroes. Paul converts many people,
and loves Christ so much that he is willing to be martyred in Rome. And so he is beheaded in
Rome. St. Peter is also Martyred
in Rome. He spent some of his last
years in Rome only to be sentenced to be crucified. He said that he wasn’t
worthy to be Crucified in the way of Christ, so he is crucified upside down…
the cruelest way to die in the 1st century just became crueler.
These two men are Saints
because they were willing to let go of themselves and to fill themselves with
Christ. With Christ, they were able
to do things beyond their wildest dreams. Because of these two men, we
are proud to call ourselves Catholic Christians this day, and without these men, who
knows where we would be.
My friends, the most
unlikeliest of heroes appear all the time in the world around us. They are our relatives,
friends, and neighbors. They are the ones who are
steadfast in the vocation the Lord has placed in front of them. It is not that these people
don’t fail. It is that they admit their
failures. They visit the sacrament of
confession. They are willing to grow and blossom from criticism. They pray and reflect. They learn.
We all come from different
walks of life. If I were to talk with each
person who reads or listens to these words, I would get a different life story. Yet, this life story leads
you to here --- right now. You see the importance of
prayer and being a member of the Body of Christ. And so to does the person next
to you and behind you at Church. Regardless of where we have
come from – the Lord calls us today. He calls us ordinary people to do
extraordinary things: called to be heroes and called to be Saints. May we learn from Sts. Peter
& Paul that even the most unlikeliest of heroes can bless the world in profound ways.
