Peter, the Apostle
(based on the text of Pope Benedict XVI General Audience 24 May 2006)
We are meditating on the Church. We said that the Church lives in people. So we will begin to meditate on the characters of the individual Apostles, beginning with St. Peter.
In this essay we will consider two important events in the life of St. Peter: the multiplication of the loaves and when the Lord calls Peter to be Pastor of the universal Church.
Let us begin with the multiplication of the loaves. You know that the people had been listening to the Lord for hours. At the end Jesus says: They are tired and hungry, we must give these people something to eat. The Apostles ask: But how? And Andres, Peter’s brother, calls Jesus’ attention to a little boy who had five loaves of bread and two fish in his backpack. The Apostles ask Jesus…..but what is this for so many people?
Jesus asks the crowd to sit down in the grass and distributes these five loaves and two fish. Everyone gets enough to eat and there is a lot left over…..Jesus tells the Apostles, Peter among them, to collect the extras….they collect 12 baskets in all.
The people, seeing this miracle (almost like a miracle of “new manna, the gift of bread from heaven) wanted to make Jesus a King. But Jesus didn’t like that idea at all, and slips away into the hills by himself to pray.
The next day, on the other side of the lake in the Synagogue of Capernaum, Jesus explained the miracle -- He tries to tell the people that he will not be a powerful King over all of Israel like the people hoped for, but a new kind of king; a new kind of king that the people had never known before. Jesus tells them “The bread which I will give for the life [salvation] of the world is my flesh.” Jesus tells them that he will give them his flesh…but they didn’t understand. Even the disciples didn’t understand what he meant and they went away scratching their heads ! What they really wanted was someone powerful who would truly renew the State of Israel [get rid of the Romans] not someone who says “I give my flesh”. They didn’t understand !
As the people walked away from Jesus because they didn’t understand what he said, Jesus turns and asks the Twelve, “Will you also go away?” Peter reacted with a generous heart guided by the Holy Spirit. He says to Jesus, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
Here Peter becomes the spokesman for the group as he professes his faith in Jesus the Christ. Peter has begun his journey of faith. Does he realize the mystery of Christ? Probably not ! That will happen only through the his experience of the Paschal events (death, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus). Peter’s faith was open to the greatest reality….it was not faith in something…. It was faith in Someone: in him, Christ.
There is a lesson here for us. We must allow ourselves to be led by Jesus…..because he does not only know the Way….but Jesus is the Way.
Peter follows Jesus with enthusiasm. But the moment comes when he gives in to fear and falls: He betrays Jesus. We all know that story.
Being a Christian person of faith is not always a life filled with glory and triumph. It can be a journey marked by suffering love, trials and faithfulness. We, like Peter, are weak and in need of forgiveness. Peter learned that the hard way when he denied Jesus.
On a spring morning on the shore of the Lake of Tiberias Jesus gives Peter “the mission.” Jesus asks Peter for the first time, “Simon…..do you love me?” and Peter answers humbly, “Lord, you know I love you.” Three times Jesus asks the same question….three times Peter answers him. Jesus puts himself on Peter’s level and ends his questions with the command, “Follow me.” Peter did because he knew Jesus would be with him always and would never let him down.
In his old age, just before he was martyred he writes to the Christians of his community and says, “Without having seen him you love him though you do not now see him you believe in him and rejoice with unutterable and exalted joy. As the outcome of your faith, you obtain the salvation of your souls.”
Justin, Philosopher and Martyr (c. 100-165 A.D.)
(based on the text of Pope Benedict XVI General Audience 21 March 2007)
Another great figure of the early Church was St. Justin, Philosopher and Martyr, who was the most important of the 2nd century apologist Fathers.
The word “apologist” describes those early Christian writers who defended the new religion from the heavy accusations of both pagans and Jews. These great men taught what Christ taught in everyday language that everyone could understand.
The apologists had 2 purposes: to defend the new Church and Christianity (apologhia in Greek means “defense”) and to be missionaries…that is to explain the content of the faith in a language and on a wavelength that the ordinary man and woman could understand.
Justin was born in about the year 100 near ancient Shechem, Samaria, in the Holy Land (Palestine); he spent years looking for the truth, moving through the various schools of the Greek philosophical tradition.
Finally as he tells us in his own words a mysterious figure, an old man he met on the seashore, leads him into a faith crisis by showing him that it is impossible for the human being to satisfy his quest for knowledge of the Divine with only his own mind. He then pointed out to him the ancient prophets as the people to turn to in order to find the way to God and “true knowledge.”
As he was leaving the old man urged him to pray that the gates of light would be opened to him. The story predicts the decisive occurrence in Justin’s life: at the end of a long search for knowledge and truth, Justin discovered the Christian faith and embraced it. He started a school in Rome where, free of charge, he taught the new religion to students. He had indeed found the truth…the art of living virtuously.
For this reason he was reported and beheaded in about 165 during the reign of the pagan Roman philosopher- emperor, Marcus Aurelius…
Two books, “The Two Apologies” and “Dialogue with the Hebrew, Tryphon” are his only surviving works. In them Justin tells us about the divine project of creation and salvation, which is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
Every person, Justin teaches, as a rational being (a thinking person) carries within himself a “seed” and can understand glimmers of the “truth.” Justin ends by saying, since Christianity is the historical and personal expression of Jesus the Word who revealed himself as a prophetic figure to the Hebrews of the Old Testament also manifested himself partially in ancient philosophy (i.e. Greek Philosophy).
In this way Justin disputed Greek philosophy and its contradictions and pointed the way for all philosophy to include the truth as fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the Word of God.
Overall, Justin’s life and his work mark the ancient Church’s forceful option for reason and philosophy (thinking based on values). The early Christians strenuously refused to recognize any and all parts and beliefs taught held by the pagan religion. They believed the pagans to be idolaters.
Justin, more than anyone, mercilessly criticized the pagan religion and its myths which he considered to the work of the devil and capable of leading men and women way from the path of truth which he knew was Jesus. Because the pagan religion clung to “myth” and was not in agreement with the truth which is Jesus it was destined to fail. It was reduced to an artificial collection of ceremonies, conventions and customs all of which were based on false and empty ideas.
In the end Pope Benedict tells us to remember the last words of the mysterious old man whom Justin Martyr met on the seashore: “Pray that, above all things, the gates of light may be opened to you for these things cannot be perceived or understood by all, but only by the man to whom God and his Christ have imparted wisdom.”
St. Clement, Bishop of Rome
(based on the text of Pope Benedict XVI General Audience 7 March 2007)
Clement is what we call an “Apostolic Father”….in other words he is part of the first and second generation in the Church after the death of the Apostles.
St. Clement was Bishop of Rome in the last years of the first century and was the third Successor of Peter…after Linus and Anacletus. St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons until 202 says something very significant about Clement….He testifies that Clement “had seen the blessed Apostles”, “had been conversant with them”, and “might be said to have the preaching of the apostles still echoing [in his ears], and their traditions before his eyes.”
Later testimonies dating back to between the 4th and 6th centuries give Clement the title of martyr.
Pope Benedict XVI says that because he was the Bishop of Rome, a position of authority and prestige, various writings were attributed to him, but the only one that is certainly his is the Letter to the Corinthians [(not to be confused with Paul’s early letter to the Corinthians]. Eusebius of Caesarea, the great historian and archivist [someone hired to collect and organize letters, document, pictures, etc. that tell the history of a place or organization] of the early Church says:
“…there is [in existence] an Epistle of this Clement which
is acknowledged to be genuine and is of considerable length
and of remarkable merit. He wrote it in the name of the Church
of Rome to the Church of Corinth, when [trouble] had arisen
in the latter Church. We know that this Epistle also has been
publicly used in a great many Churches both in former times
and in our own.” (Hist. Eccl. 3, 16)
This letter was considered to be very, very important. At the beginning of the text, written in Greek, Clement expressed his regret that “the sudden and successive [dreadful] events which have happened to ourselves” had prevented him from intervening sooner….The [dreadful] events are identified with Domitian’s persecution which tells us that the letter was written just after the Emperor’s death and at the end of the persecution…after 96 A.D.
The reason why Clement wrote the letter was because the elders of the Church of Corinth had been removed by some young [competitors]. St. Irenaeus writes:
“In the time of this Clement no small [disagreement] having
occurred among the brethren in Corinth, the Church in
Rome dispatched a most powerful Letter to the Corinthians
exhorting them to peace, renewing their faith and declaring
the tradition which it had lately received from the Apostles.”
Pope Benedict XVI tells us that this Letter was probably the first letter written by a Roman Pope after St. Peter’s death. Clement’s letter touches on topics that were important to St. Paul (who wrote two letters to the Corinthians). Benedict XVI tells us that Clement writes about grace and tells the Corinthians (and us) that the Lord cautions us and gives us his forgiveness, gives us his love and the grace to be Christians, his brothers and sisters. Our faith fills our life with joy and gives certainty to our action: The Lord always warns us with his goodness and the Lord’s goodness is always greater than all of our sins.
Clement’s letter tells us we must commit ourselves in a way that is consistent with the gift received and respond to the truth of salvation with a generous and courageous journey of conversion.
Clement added to Paul’s teachings with a “great prayer” calling the faithful to humility and brotherly love…two truly constitutive virtues of being in the Church: “Seeing, therefore, that we are the portion of the Holy One,” he warned, “let us do all those things which pertain to holiness.”
Clement reminds the Corinthians that the Lord himself has told us how he wants things to be done according to His will. He [the Lord] has assigned to everyone a ministry and a place in that ministry…the high priest has his place as well as his authority, the priest has his own special ministry that has passed down to him from the Levites [Tribe of Levi – designated the priestly tribe by Moses to serve in the Temple] as does the lay person [from the Greek word “laikos” which means a member of the People of God] who is bound by the laws that relate to laymen.
By referring to the priests of ancient Israel, the Levites, Clement reveals his ideal Church. Clement says that the Church was assembled by “the one Spirit of grace, poured out upon us: which breathes on the various members of the Body of Christ, where all, united without divisions, are “members of one another.
Clement’s clear distinction between the “lay person” and the clergy/hierarchy tells us that everyone has a different mission in the Church. He points out that the Church is not a place of confusion and anarchy where everyone can do what they want all the time. In the Church everyone works at their ministry using the gifts they have received from the Holy Spirit.
In this wonderful letter Clement clearly explains the doctrine of Apostolic Succession and the fact that this authority comes directly from God himself. God, the Father, sent Jesus, who in turn sent the Apostles. They then sent the first heads of communities and established that they would be succeeded by other worthy men.
Everything was done “in an orderly way, according to the will of God.” With these words Clement tells us that the Church’s structure was sacramental and not political. The Church is a gift from God and not something that we created.
In Clement’s letter he includes a prayer for political institutions and their rulers. The Christians knew that the persecutions would continue but they never stopped praying for the very authorities who unjustly condemned them. It’s important to remember that it is necessary to pray for one’s persecutors just as Jesus did on the cross.
Also in this letter Clement includes a teaching that will guide the Church for years to come regarding politics and the State. In praying for the Authorities, Clement recognizes that legitimacy of political institutions in the order established by God; and at the same time he tells us that he thinks that the Authorities must consider first God’s law before the law of the land. He says that Caesar is not everything….but God is…and God’s truth needs to be heard by the State.
This letter is very meaningful in that in it Clement declares the concern and authority of the Church of Rome over all the other Churches.