The Wondrous Pair

A Sermon for the Day of the Holy, Glorious, All-Praised, and Foremost Apostles Peter and Paul

Jesus said to his disciples: But who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter answered: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (Mt 16:15-16)

Beloved brothers! Today the Church keeps the holy and glorious memory of the foremost apostles of Christ, Peter and Paul. Let us also remember them with a reverent, grateful, and praising word.

What crown of praise, then, shall we weave out of our simple words for the foremost apostles, when the holy Church has so beautifully sung their exploits in her hymns, and the holy orators, the pastors and teachers of the Church, have exalted them with praise? Shall we point to their qualities of soul, so worthy of imitation, or at least to some of their more outstanding deeds, so that we may benefit our own souls by the remembrance and contemplation of their Godlike qualities and great deeds, and at the same time be filled with deep feelings of gratitude, love, and reverence toward them?

What qualities of soul and virtues, then, did the holy apostles Peter and Paul possess, especially after receiving the gifts of the Holy Spirit—for before that they too had certain infirmities? What, I repeat, were the qualities and virtues that exalted them before God, before the angels, and before men? These qualities were: the holy simplicity of their character; a living faith in Jesus Christ as the Only-begotten Son of God, firmer than adamant (diamond); unshakable hope in God; purest, ardent love for God, and in God, for perishing mankind redeemed by the precious blood of the Son of God; meekness and humility, unchanging and equal toward all, joined with respect for every person, especially one seeking truth and salvation; constant closeness and accessibility to all; angelic patience; until the end of their lives—constant, fervent zeal for the salvation of all people; constant self-restraint; complete self-denial as regards pleasing the flesh and every worldly attachment; a mind continually gazing upward; total devotion to God; holiness in their whole manner of life—such were the chief features of their character after their renewal by grace! Let me point to a single example of the simplicity of character and the direct, living faith of the apostle Peter. When the contemporaries of the Lord Jesus Christ thought variously about Him and did not believe in Him as the Son of God—some thought He was John the Baptist, others that He was Elijah the prophet, and others that He was Jeremiah, or one of the ancient prophets risen from the dead—the apostle Peter, to the question Jesus Christ put to the disciples: Who do you consider Me to be? — answered directly: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God[1]. And this faith in Peter was so sincere and firm even before his renewal by the Holy Spirit that the Lord called him blessed: Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in the heavens[2]. And this means that Peter was worthy of such a revelation from the heavenly Father concerning His Son because of his simplicity, foreign to every kind of guile and doubt, as the Lord Himself testified, saying: I acknowledge You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things — that is, the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God — from the wise and understanding, and have revealed them to little ones[3], that is, to simple people. That is why Jesus Christ, continuing His speech to Peter, gives him this new name—Peter, which means rock—foreseeing his firm faith and his firm confession of Him as the Son of God to his last breath, and promises to build His Church on this rock, that is, on the firm confession of Christ as God, or the society of those who believe in Him, which all the powers of hell shall not overcome, and to give him the keys of the kingdom of heaven—to open and to shut it for men—for all things are possible to faith: it is the key to the heavenly kingdom. The apostle Peter fully justified the trust of his divine Teacher: having only once shown weakness by denying his Lord in straitened circumstances, he remained faithful to the end of his life to the Lord who had called him, and sealed his faith and his apostolic labors with a martyr’s death: he was crucified on a cross head downward.

But as for Saul, formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insulter of the Christian faith, its doctrine, and the disciples of Christ—Saul—who was afterwards renamed Paul: after Jesus Christ appeared to him miraculously from heaven on the road to Damascus, he changed completely in his thoughts, his intentions, his heart, and his life: three days after this he was already openly confessing before all the Jews and Gentiles that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and by this he made for himself the bitterest enemies everywhere among them, who many times attempted to kill him. His faith in the Lord was so steadfast that by that very faith he worked a great many miracles, openly and fearlessly confessed it before everyone, and for its sake endured countless labors and suffered countless persecutions, prisons, afflictions, beatings, floggings, and finally beheading by the sword. This is what he himself writes about himself in his second epistle, or letter, to the inhabitants of the city of Corinth, whom he had brought to the faith of Christ: I have toiled far more (than the other apostles), been wounded beyond measure, been in prison more often, and many times stood at the point of death. From the Jews five times I received forty lashes less one; three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I suffered shipwreck, I spent a night and a day in the depths of the sea; I have made many journeys, in dangers on rivers, in dangers from robbers, in dangers from my fellow countrymen, in dangers from the Gentiles, in dangers in the city, in dangers in the wilderness, in dangers at sea, in dangers among false brothers, in labor and in exhaustion, often without sleep, in hunger and in thirst, often in fasting, in the cold and in nakedness. Besides all these external happenings, every day there is the gathering of crowds around me and the care of all the churches. Who is weak, and with whom would I not be weak as well? Who is scandalized, and for whom would I not burn?[4]

Such are the features of Paul’s lofty character; such are his temptations, his struggles, his labors! What was the cause of them? His ardent love for God and for man: for he himself says of this in the Epistle to the Romans: Who will separate us from the love of God? Sorrow, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? As it is written: For Your sake we are put to death all the day long; we are counted as sheep appointed for slaughter. But in all this we overcome through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord[5]. There is love for God in the apostle Paul—a flaming love, worthy of God! If only we possessed even a small spark of such love! The apostle Peter had the like love, and the other apostles as well. Tell me: is it possible to praise the chief apostles Peter and Paul as they deserve? Can one ever cease to marvel at their faith, their hope, their courage, their love, their patience, their labors? Human speech is incapable of portraying their valor, at which the angels in heaven marveled. If we compare ourselves with them, what shall we turn out to be? — Dust that the wind lifts and whirls along the roads, or a reed shaken by the wind. But through their prayers, O Lord, establish and save us, who are drowning in our sins!

To all that has been said I will add that the apostles had the mind of Christ, the heart of Christ, the lips of Christ; they enlightened the whole world with their teaching and brought all the ends of the earth to Christ; they tore from the devil’s mouth countless human souls, as prey beyond all price; they dried up the salt-bitter sea of passions and vices; they brought into the world enlightenment, rebirth, renewal; they set the Church in good order; they established the divine services and the Mysteries, by which we now profit for our cleansing, our sanctification, our comfort, and our salvation; by their God-inspired writings we are instructed, comforted, and strengthened to this very day; by their prayers we stand firm in the faith and in piety; they healed mankind, which was sick with corruption, and taught it to despise the corruptible and to strive toward the incorruptible. They sowed the seed of incorruption and holiness in human hearts, and holiness and incorruption flourished among men—there appeared countless hosts of zealots for the incorruptible life, and they inherited the incorruptible, unaging, eternal life: I mean the countless hosts of martyrs, hierarchs, venerable men and women, unmercenaries, righteous ones, and all the saints. The desert has blossomed like a lily, O Lord—the Gentile church that had borne no fruit—by Your coming, through the sufferings and labors of the apostles of Christ.

Let us be built up, my brethren, by so glorious an example of the apostles: by their faith, hope, love, purity, meekness, humility, patience, and devotion to the will of God—by their self-denial, abstinence, freedom from covetousness, and courage—and let us be imbued with their spirit and made alive by it. May the Lord grant this to us all, without Whom we can do nothing at all[6], and without Whom the house of the soul is not built. Amen.