St. Peter's Day

St. Peter’s Day
June 29, 2025

Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, 
if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: 
that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold 
that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise 
and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ….
(1 St. Peter i. 6,7) 
 

Concerning the Saint whom we celebrate today – St. Peter – we know more than about the other Apostles or even the Mother of our Lord. We don’t know anything about Saint Peter’s wife, except that he had one, and that her mother was once sick and Jesus healed her. Saint Peter’s original name was Simon. He was the son of Jonah, had a brother named Andrew, came from the village of Bethsaida, and had a fishing business along with James and John, the sons of Zebedee. Simon was later called Peter. The word in Latin is Petrus, derived from the Greek Πετροσ and related to the Aramaic word for kepa, which became, again in Greek, Κηφασ, all basically meaning rock. So we read of either Simon Peter or Cephas in the New Testament as the rock upon whom Christ Jesus intended to build his Church. 

The rest of what we know of Simon Peter can be read in the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles of St. Paul, and St. Peter’s own Epistles. Suffice it to say that St. Peter was an eyewitness of the adult life of Jesus Christ, denied the Lord whom he knew, witnessed His Resurrection, received the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, and then went on to contribute in no small way to the conversion of the nations. Tradition has it that he died a martyr at Rome, crucified upside down by the Emperor Nero between 64 and 67 A.D. He was crucified upside down because he did not deem himself worthy to be hung right-side-up like his Lord. 

What is most remarkable about Saint Peter is this. Far beyond the miracles that he performed or any details of his personal life that the Scripture reveals, Saint Peter came to embrace the living Christ fully in his heart after much trial and tribulation. His faith was tried with fire. (idem) We know that Peter was full of impetuous and impulsive energy, whose passions too often overran wisdom.

St. Peter’s faithful zeal and passion for Christ needed to be moderated by prudence before he could become a true disciple and shepherd of the embryonic Church. The Peter who should be the rock on which the Church would be built had to be completely broken and ground to powder before converting truly to Christ. When later, Peter exhorts his friends to come to Christ, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious (1 St. Peter ii. 5), he speaks as a man who had at one time denied Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, that precious stone, the head of the corner, had been to him a stone of stumbling, a rock of offence, because he had stumbled at the Word [of God in Jesus Christ], being disobedient. (Ibid, 8)

St. Peter, chosen by Christ, knew only too acutely and piercingly his own sin against the Master. When Jesus was undergoing interrogation for crucifixion, Peter denied that he knew the Lord three times, and when the cock crowed, Peter went outside and wept bitterly. (Ibid, 62) Jesus prophesied that Peter would deny him, but He said also, Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat.  But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers. (St. Luke xxii. 31) Satan would try Peter’s faith much in the same way that he had tested Job’s.
        
So Peter did, as prophesied, indeed turn back to the Lord; he repented, waited, watched, and finally was converted through Christ’s Resurrection and the descent of the Holy Ghost into his soul. Like the woman who bathed Jesus’ feet with her tears, Simon [whose] sins which [were] many, [were] forgiven; for [he] loved much. (St. Luke vii. 47) But St. Peter’s conversion would be an ongoing process, in constant need of readjustment and reform.
What is most remarkable about Saints Peter’s faith is that it was accompanied by humility. Holding tenaciously onto his old Jewish religion, St. Peter had to learn to humbly cede Jewish tradition to Christ’s Grace. The nature of his eventual mission to the Gentiles came only once his prejudicial bigotry was wholly conquered. That the Gentile Christians were to be treated as equals, fellow sinners in need of Christ’s redemption, equally capable of revealing Christ’s power, came to St. Peter slowly.

What St. Peter learned was in large part due to the conversion of St. Paul. Following his conversion and baptism at the hands of Ananias in Damascus, St. Luke tells us that Paul proved his courageous faith through preaching. He began to preach Christ in the Synagogues, that Christ was the Son of God…increasing in strength and confounding the Jews at Damascus. (Acts, ix. 20, 22) Paul escaped from Damascus by the skin of his teeth. St. Barnabas brought him to Jerusalem and presented him to the Apostles. Peter and his fellow Apostles were skeptical of Paul’s conversion until Barnabas revealed that he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus. (ibid, 27) When Paul began to debate with the Hellensistic Jews of Jerusalem, the Apostles saw that his faith in Christ was unwavering since the Jews sought to kill him, requiring the Jerusalem Church to send Paul home to Tarsus for a season. The Church was beginning to realize that Paul’s mission might very well be to the Gentiles.

At the same time, curiously enough, St. Peter’s faith was being tried and tested to align with St. Paul’s wisdom. Peter was called up to the newly established Christian community of Lydda. There he met a Hellenistic Jew named Aeneas, who kept his bed for eight years and was sick of the palsy. (ibid, 33) Peter would engage Christ for Aeneas. He said to Aeneas, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole: arise, and make thy bed. And he arose immediately. (ibid, 34) Aeneas means praiseworthy in ancient pagan Greek and carries our minds to the great Trojan warrior who founded Rome.

Next, the church in Joppa had petitioned Peter to come to them because a Hellenized disciple of Christ named Tabitha, full of good works and alms deeds, (ibid, 36) had died. The church at Joppa had washed her body and laid it in an upper chamber. (ibid, 37) These early Christians had not buried her immediately because they had hoped that Peter might come to work a miracle to bring her back to life.  Peter arrived at Tabitha’s home, where he found the mourning widows. But Peter put them all forth. (ibid, 40) Peter would not seek his own vainglory by performing before the whole congregation. This was a time for prayer and solitude with Christ. Peter kneeled down and prayed, and turning him to the body said, Tabitha, arise. And she opened her eyes: and when she saw Peter, she sat up. (ibid, 40) Tabitha means gracious. Contact with both Aeneas and Tabitha was considered proper by St. Peter. Aeneas was a Jew who was healed for conversion; Tabitha was a Jewish Christian whose service of the Gospel would continue.

But St. Peter’s faith needed further strengthening. Twelve miles north of Joppa a Hellenized pagan or righteous Gentile, a Roman Centurion, a leader of the Italian band was stationed. His name was Cornelius. Cornelius would be the first Gentile on record to have become a Christian. Cornelius received a vision from God because he was a devout pagan, who served God with all his house, gave alms to the poor, and prayed constantly. (ibid, x. 2) An angel of God instructed him to send for Simon Peter, who was at Joppa. The next day, we find Peter going up to pray at noon, overcome with hunger, and falling into a trance. Peter, too, received his own vision. A great sheet descended from heaven with all manner of birds and beasts upon it, both clean and unclean in his Jewish eyes. He heard a voice saying, Peter, rise, kill, and eat. (ibid, 13) But St. Peter’s Jewish blood resisted contamination with anything unclean. Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean. (ibid, 14) God responded, what God hath cleansed, that call thou not common. (ibid, 15) In Christ, Peter would be called to see that nothing that God has made is common or unclean, beyond cleansing, be it food to eat or a Gentile to be converted. In Christ, Peter would be called to welcome the Gentile embassy and travel with them to meet the righteous Cornelius and bring him to baptism. St. Peter was called to make contact with what his Jewish sensibilities forbade. He had to see that the Gentiles were neither common nor unclean, but as equally in need of Jesus Christ as any sinful Jew.

From St. Paul, St. Peter would learn about the universality of the Gospel and the need to go forth and teach all nations. Through a trial by fire, the spiritual facts challenged his cherished Jewish prejudices. Cornelius was sent by Christ to Peter that Peter might learn that the Gentiles would also have their share of Christ’s redemption. Peter’s loyalty to Christ’s promises made to the Jews would need to expand beyond racial and cultural boundaries. Peter needed to learn that Christ is the source of greater promises for all men. In the end, since Cornelius was commanded to send for Peter, he would press Peter for his share in the Gospel truth with a desire for Christ that would overcome Peter’s sinful judgment of the Gentiles. Peter learned that what he called common and unclean could be cleansed.
        
As tradition has it, Saints Peter and Paul would be exiled from Israel, their own native Jewish land, where God’s own chosen people persisted in rejecting Christ. Both would learn, too, that not all Gentiles welcomed the Gospel. Christ was as offensive to Caesar and the Jewish Rabbis alike. Gentile and Jew alike could accept or reject Christ. St. Peter, with St. Paul, was tried by fire. St. Peter would learn that if he would be faithful to Christ, he must never deny the benefit of the salvation to any man, be he Jew or Greek. For before his eyes the Holy Ghost descended upon Cornelius and his Italian Band, unloosing tongues that glorified God and desired Baptism, which Peter could not deny but would hereafter offer to all willing.
Today, let us give thanks to God for the life and witness of St. Peter, for his repentance, honesty, and willingness to have his faith increased and perfected for redemption of the Jews and conversion of the Gentiles beginning in Jerusalem and continuing in Rome, for the West and beyond.
 
Amen.
©wjsmartin

 
 
    
 
 
  

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