WORD ALIVE

This Sunday we celebrate the feast of the two greatest saints —Saints Peter and Paul.
 

In the beginning, the two were far from perfect. Paul was never a God-fearing, gentle person. Harsh and cruel,  he relentlessly oppressed the early Christians, imprisoning them and even supervising their executions, like the stoning to death of the martyr Stephen.
 

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But God showed his mighty power. As Saul was going to Damascus breathing rage and terror to apprehend the Christians, he was struck down from his horse by a blinding light and heard a voice: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”
 

“Who are you, Lord?” the blinded, helpless Saul said. “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.”
This became the turning point of Saul’s life, symbolized by the changing of his name to Paul. (Read the detail of his conversion in Acts, chapter 9).
 

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There are some people who have been asking, “Why does the Lord not “intervene,” like he did with Saul, knocking down some bad people like the corrupt and incorrigible who cause so much sufferings by their crimes to society and families? 
 

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Just why God doesn’t punish evil people immediately is discerned from Jesus’ parable of the Wheat and Weeds.  (Read Matthew 13, 24-43). “Let the wheat and weeds grow together,” the Lord says. “But at harvest time, collect the weeds first and bundle them up to be burned!” He was referring to the Last Judgment and hell as tormenting punishment for the bad people.
 

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Peter was singled out by the Lord as the head of the apostles. “You are ‘Rock,’ (kephas in Aramaic; petrus in Latin) and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it” (Mt 16, 17-18).
By this, the Lord chose Peter as the head of the church and became the first pope. Since then there has been a succession of popes with Francis I as the 265th.         
 

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By choosing Peter and Paul as pillars of his Church, the Lord entrusted the Church he founded in the hands of imperfect humans. 
Even after his dramatic conversion, Paul was temperamental and hard to get along with. 
 

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And Peter? We all know how he denied ever knowing the Lord thrice at the darkest hours of his Master and death and how he abandoned him. But when the Lord rose from the dead, he looked for Peter who felt so ashamed of his cowardice and said, “Depart from me for I am a sinful man.” But the Lord put aside Peter’s ignominious cowardice and took him back, choosing him as the solid foundation of the Church and leader of his disciples.
 

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We, poor mortals, can identify with the two great apostles who had their own faults and transgressions. Knowing that we, too, are imperfect, we can rise from our human failings if only we are sorry for our sins. But it’s not enough simply to say “I’m sorry.”  We should make acts of reparation like doing works of charity and resolve to turn our back on the wrong we have done.
 

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The lighter side. A man approached his priest-friend and bragged, “Father, I got rid of my vices.” “How did you do it?” the priest replied. “I stopped drinking through will power; gambling? will power; smoking? will power.” The priest said, “How about womanizing?” “power failure,” he said sheepishly.
“But I’m trying hard to overcome it, Father.”
 

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Prayer.  “Lord, so far today I haven’t gossiped, haven’t lost my temper, haven’t been nasty or greedy or selfish. But in a few minutes, I’ll be getting out of bed.
 

So help me God.” (He’s upright when asleep).
 

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Support seminarians. Let’s help our seminarians who are enrolling for the new school year. Seminarians are very important in the Church. Without them we cannot have priests, bishops, and popes simply because they all start as seminarians.
 

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Moreover, we cannot have ordained ministers to dispense the sacraments like baptism, confession, Holy Mass as well as missionaries to evangelize peoples here and abroad who have not known Christ.
 

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For inquiry, e-mail me at: [email protected]. God bless.