The fisherman and the pharisee

Although it hasn’t been a holy day of obligation in the United States since 1840, the solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul is as close as we can get to that, without declaring it one. The feast is observed annually on June 29, which falls on a Sunday this year.

Peter and Paul could not have been more different from each other. But the liturgical wisdom that brought these two towering saints together in a shared feast underscores the fact that the church needed both the fisherman and the Pharisee — and still does.

Christ Jesus has always called ordinary workers and natural leaders, people with hearts that are quick to commit themselves fully and shoulders that are willing and able to bear the weight of responsibility. But God also calls people who take things more deliberately, minds that grapple with the truth and then offer themselves in service to it; energetic souls who don’t hesitate to go to the ends of the earth in every respect.

The readings for the Mass that commemorates them are instructive. In Acts 3:1-10, we see Peter and John on their way to Temple prayers when they encounter a man who had been crippled from birth at the gate begging for alms. Peter takes the man’s needs — and his request — seriously, then challenges the man to see that they did not possess what he was asking them to give.

But instead of ending the encounter there, Peter offers something better: “I have neither silver nor gold, but what I do have I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, rise and walk.” I suppose Peter and John could have kept walking in good conscience. They chose not to. Luke tells us that Peter took the man “by the right hand and raised him up.” At that moment, the beggar’s feet and ankles were healed. After leaping up to his feet and walking around, the man joined Peter and John and went into the Temple with them.

Paul is unquestionably the greatest evangelist of all time. In the second reading, Galatians 1:11-20, however, we hear the apostle describe his life before he encountered Christ: “You heard of my former way of life in Judaism, how I persecuted the Church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it.”

Everything, of course, changed after Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus. And yet, Paul did not respond hastily or alone: “When God, who from my mother’s womb had set me apart and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him to the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were Apostles before me.” Paul did eventually present himself to Peter in Jerusalem, but only after three years of prayer and preparation.

Today, Christ is still looking for missionaries who have zeal for the salvation of souls, and for ministers who care for fellow disciples in self-sacrificing love. The Christian life usually challenges us to embrace both of these dimensions of discipleship at some level and in some way.

With the solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, the church provides us an opportunity to contemplate both mission and ministry in fullness. There are seasons of our lives that will involve more ministry than mission, and others that will be more mission than ministry.

As disciples of Christ, we will be called to care for others, to give them what we can give — the Jesus we have received. But there are also times when we will be called to what may feel like the ends of the earth, sent to those who don’t even know they need the Gospel we can so easily take for granted.

The final words of the Gospel, John 21:15-19, show us what we need to do both: “Follow me.”

Christ’s question to Peter after the Resurrection is posed to every one of us. “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” If we love Jesus, we will feed his lambs and tend his sheep. And if we love Jesus, we will allow ourselves to be led where we may not want to go. If we love Jesus, we will follow him.

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