Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles – June 30, 2024

St. Paul – Lyons, KS

Acts 12:1-11; Psalm 34:2-9; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 17-18; Matthew 16:13-19

[Video coming soon]

Peter & Paul: Proclaiming “Jesus is the Christ, the Lord”

(So today, Deacon Nick bet me $100 that I couldn’t preach a good homily in less than 12 minutes. So when I knock this out of the park you can all make sure that he pays up!) Like I mentioned, today we celebrate the solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul—Paul of course being our patron, so this day is an added solemnity for us! Both of these great apostles died, were martyred in Rome. First Peter, who was famously crucified upside down, and then Paul, who, as a Roman citizen, was given the dignified death of beheading. And since the earliest of days, their feasts have been celebrated on the same day.

And there is so much we could talk about with these two. But I want to focus our attention in on just one—and that is the fact that both of their lives were marked and shaped and rooted in a simple fact: Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the true Lord of the world. And this confession, this fact—this is what literally changed everything in their lives! This is what led them to abandon their “normal life.” And they refused to give up on this fact, even when it led them to being ostracized by the friends, by their co-workers, by their communities; even when it led them into prison; even when it led them to death.

Seriously, just think. Peter had a pretty lucrative fishing business up in Galilee. But after encountering Jesus, after coming to know him, and to know that this Jesus is the Christ, he gives it all up. Paul—Paul was an up-and-coming Pharisee, destined to be a leader among the Pharisees; he was initially fiercely persecuting and imprisoning and killing the people that followed Jesus; but when he encountered Jesus, when he came to know that this Jesus is the Christ, he gave it all up. Both of them, by their own paths, come to know one fact: this Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the true Lord of the world. And so they place everything else in second place to him. And what happens? Immediately they face persecution!

The simple question that I want us to reflect on today, today as we celebrate St. Peter and our patron St. Paul—I want us to reflect on this: Am I willing to follow the same path as Peter and Paul, a path that doesn’t lead to comfort and praise and fame and power and money, but one that quite often leads to persecution, one that is at times quite difficult?

The Cost of Discipleship

One example that I love to share of this is of a fourteen year old boy from Mexico named Joe. In the early 20th century, a persecution of the Catholic Church in Mexico began when the Mexican president decided to brutally enforce the secularist and anticlerical laws of the 1917 Constitution. The government began to brutally persecute the Catholic Church: seizing property, closing churches and schools and convents, imprisoning and executing the priests. And in the midst of this, the people of Mexico rebelled—they rebelled, calling themselves Cristeros. And so began what is known as the Cristero War.

Among the Cristeros was a twelve year-old boy named Joe, or José or Joselito, or José Luis Sanchez del Río. José was born in Sahuayo, Michoacán, México. He was the third of four children. And he loved his faith and grew up with a strong devotion to Jesus Christ and Our Lady of Guadalupe. He was an altar boy at Mass. And even though he was just twelve, José joined the rebellion as a flag bearer. During one battle, José was captured and imprisoned. And there in captivity, José was ordered to renounce his faith in Jesus as the Christ, Jesus as king. They said, “If you shout, ‘Death to Christ the King,’ we will spare your life.” And he refused. They threatened to kill him, and still he refused. He was forced to watch the hanging of another Cristero—he still refused.

And so José, only 14 years old—after realizing they were not going to break his faith, the troops cut the bottom of his feet with machetes and forced him to walk around the town barefoot toward the cemetery. And before they executed him, his last word were, “Viva Cristo Rey.” His last words before they shot and killed him, “Viva Cristo Rey! Long live Christ the King.”

This is the point: José, like so many martyrs before him, like Sts. Peter and Paul—José was willing to follow the same path as Peter and Paul, that path which didn’t lead to comfort and praise and fame and power, but a path that led to persecution, one of great difficulty—all because he believed and lived a simple fact: Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the true Lord of the world. And, like Peter and Paul, José is now numbered among the saints! Like we heard in our second reading—this second letter to Timothy which Paul wrote literally right before his execution—Paul tells us, as he is in prison, awaiting execution!—Paul tells us, “ I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil threat and will bring me safe to his heavenly Kingdom.” Paul is literally chained, in prison, about to be executed, but he sees a bigger picture! And he knows that even from death the Lord will rescue him. Why? How? Because Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the true Lord of the world.

Our Soft Martyrdom

The thing with these epic stories, like José Sanchez del Río—we can easily say, “Well, that’s nice, but we live in Kansas—that’s not going to happen here.” And you’re right! The persecution and difficulty we face is probably not going to be a literal martyrdom like Peter and Paul, or José, or any of the other martyrs. But we are persecuted, and your faith is under attack—just in very subtle ways. And I would argue that that is an even more difficult and dangerous persecution. It’s that story I tell too much of the man from China: there in China, literally being beaten and tortured, he refuses to give up his faith; here in the United States, within a few years of living the American Dream and running his own restaurant, he gives it up entirely. What Communist China couldn’t do, what torture couldn’t do, our culture was able to do—and it didn’t even have to try.

We are here today because at some level we believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the true Lord of the world. We believe that Jesus is the king, he is the one to whom we give our loyalty. But because of that, we’re going to face persecution—and not like Peter and Paul or José Sanchez, no. We face a “soft persecution,” a subtle one, like the man from China. Work—work begins to dominate our lives, and take it over; work become our “king.” Sports, football, softball—we get a schedule from the coach and that becomes our “king.” Busyness—just everything that’s going on becomes our “king.” And I’m not guessing! People literally tell me this, to my face! But do we recognize that THIS—this is how, in the twenty-first century, in the United States, THIS is what persecution looks like. We don’t have soldiers persecuting us, we have a desire for money, we have neighbors, we have teammates and coaches. We don’t face prison, we face isolation: “If I don’t do this, if I don’t go along with everyone else, I’ll be alone. I’ll feel left out.” We don’t face physical torture, we face people talking about us behind our back, mocking us. And in the midst of it, many of us will abandon our faith. Paul, in this second reading, right after it, he talks about all of the people that have abandoned him. One person—Paul says, “Demas, enamored of the present world, abandoned me” (2 Tim 4:10). Even back then, the struggle was there: “enamored of the present world.” That soft, subtle persecution was there. And I can tell you story after story, from my life, from my parents’ life, from my friends’ lives—story after story about how they faced all of this persecution simply because they didn’t fall in line with what everyone else was doing.

And so the question for us is: Are we still convinced that seeking greatness and money and fame in this “kingdom” is most important, and we still enamored by this world? Or, are we seeking greatness in the kingdom of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the true Lord and king of the world? 

My hope is that on this solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul we will becoming more willing to follow the same path as them; a path that doesn’t lead to comfort and praise and fame and power, but one that quite often leads to persecution, one that is at times quite difficult—but that (as Paul says) leads to a “crown of righteousness,” a path on which the Lord will stand by us and give us strength, one which will bring us “safe to his heavenly Kingdom.”