Welcome to Finding God in Our Hearts. The following production Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a weekly program of deep spiritual insight on Scripture, revealing the indwelling presence of God. Monsignor Fisher is a Catholic priest, a member of the Diocese of Dallas, and founder of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a nonprofit in Dallas, Texas, dedicated to to enriching your spiritual journey. We appreciate your listenership and if you find this program valuable, please subscribe and share with your friends. This program is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you make your donation@pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com Good morning. Today we celebrate the feasts of St.

Peter and Paul. The Opening Prayer God our Father, Today you give us the joy of celebrating the Feast of the Apostles, Peter and Paul. Through them your church first received the faith. Keep us true to their teaching. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

A reading from the Acts of the apostles, 12th chapter, first through the 11th verse in those days King Herod laid hands upon some members of the church to harm them. He had James, the brother of John, killed by the sword. When he saw that this was pleasing to the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. It was the Feast of the Unleavened Bread. He had him taken into custody and put in prison under the guard of four squads of four soldiers each. He intended to bring him before the people after Passover.

Peter thus was being kept in prison, but prayer by the Church was fervently being made to God on his behalf. On the very night Herod was to bring him to trial. Peter, secured by double chains, was sleeping between two soldiers, while outside the door guards kept watch on the prison. Suddenly the angel of the Lord stood by him and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on the side and awakened him, saying, get up quickly. The chains fell from his wrists.

The angel said to him, put on your belt and your sandals. He did so. Then he said to him, put on your cloak and follow me. So he followed him out, not realizing that what was happening through the angel was real. He thought he was seeing a vision. They passed the first guard, then the second, and came to the iron gate leading out to the city, which opened for them by itself.

They emerged and made their way down an alley, and suddenly the angel left him. The Word of the Lord the Angel of the Lord rescues those who fear him. A reading from the second letter of St. Paul to Timothy 4th chapter 681718 I, Paul, am already being poured out like a libation, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have completed well. I have finished the race.

I have kept the faith. From now on, the crown of righteousness awaits me, which the Lord, the Just Judge, will award to me on that day. And not only to me, but to all who have longed for his appearance. The Lord stood by me and gave me strength that through me the proclamation might be completed and all the Gentiles might hear of it. And 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.

To him be glory forever and ever. Amen. The Word of the Lord. Aliyu verse. You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church. And the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.

The gospel for this feast of the Peter and Paul is taken from St. Matthew 16:13, 19. When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say that the Son of Man is? They replied, some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. He said to them, but who do you say that I am? 7 Peter said in reply, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus said to him in reply, blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church. And the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

The Gospel of the Lord Satan Every six, seven years, we celebrate on a Sunday, this great feast of Peter and Paul, which falls always on the date of 29 June. So when 29 June falls on a Sunday, then we drop the ordinary Sunday of the year and celebrate this great feast. And it’s a fascinating feast and I’m delighted to preach on it this morning. And one of the things that I’d like you to imagine with me, one of the ways I’d like to start this homily is to make sure that we understand that the figures that are so strong and powerful in the Christian story, in the Scriptures, Jesus himself, Peter, Paul, all the disciples, all those key figures, all of them are somehow to be seen not as such unique figures that we would step back from look up to feel that they are special, different than the rest of us. No, the key is to enter into their experience and to recognize that whatever they experience, that too is our experience. In many ways, their experience is exaggerated to make points, to make it clear what it is that they were going through.

And so this work of identification with these famous people is so important, not that we have to imitate their life or something like that. We don’t have to wear long hair and sandals and things like that to imitate Jesus. We just have to somehow enter into, in a sense, the same kind of experiences that they were having and have the same kind of understanding that they had, particularly after the experiences they went through. We have the advantage of growing from their experiences. Now, the first thing I want to start with is the image in the Gospel, which is the heart of every single person’s spiritual walk. And that is to understand and to know who Christ really is.

It is amazing, amazing how many people had false notions of what the Messiah was to be. And how many people in this world today that walk this earth are really looking at this image or possessing an image of God that is not clearly the image that God has given us through Christ. So to know Christ, to know who he really is, to have that decision, not because somebody else has told us, but because we really do know him. That’s the other issue that’s interesting about knowing Christ. It’s not just an intellectual knowledge that we’re talking about. It’s really knowing him, having an experience of his presence and a sense of his focus and direction and his vision of the world.

That’s what we need to have. So it’s interesting that we see in this. First, in the Gospel, we see Peter’s authority, Peter’s rock role, so to speak, that he’s the anchor for the church, that this is all fundamentally based in this key knowledge, this core sense of who God really is. I love the fact that when these questions are asked of the disciples, there’s a lot of answers about, well, some say this, some say that, some say this. But I love the way Jesus looks them in the eye and simply says, but what do you think? Who do you really think I am?

All that really, Peter is able to say at the point that he is in his life is not so much who Jesus is, not so much his nature and his vision and what he’s here to do. But the knowledge begins with an absolute certainty that this figure is who he says he is in terms of an authentic representation of God, that he really is the source of the truth. If you really want to get to know this extraordinary figure, God, this is the place to go, this is the one. To pay attention to that that’s the rock upon which Christianity rests, that Jesus is the one. Now, Peter doesn’t understand fully who this Jesus really is, but he knows he’s the one. So it starts off by him saying, I believe that you are the Messiah.

Now, the part of this story that’s not included in our passage today, as you well know, it goes on that no sooner has Peter made this profession of faith that he really does understand that Christ is the one, that then when Christ goes about revealing or continues to reveal who he is and what it is that he’s going to accomplish, Peter thinks that’s a terrible idea. It’d be horrible if you had to die and turn yourself over to evil, the evil ones. That’s a terrible idea. God forbid that that would ever happen to you. And then that stinging statement from Jesus, no, this is Satan’s work. Right here is Satan’s work.

To convince someone that they know God. To convince someone that Jesus is God’s best representation, that he is God incarnate. To believe that and then to take that and twist it and turn that figure, Jesus into someone who he isn’t, that’s Satan’s work. If you want to get to the heart of evil, that’s where it is. Because it’s the same thing. You might say that it is giving the authority of the truth to that which is an illusion.

And the minute you can give authority to illusions and claim that they are the truth, then there’s no limit to the evil that you can accomplish. Look at Nazi Germany, who thought perfection, weeding out that which was imperfect, trying to create the perfect race. That one could take a goal like that and say, anything that we need to do in order to make that happen is acceptable. So we can destroy all these individuals in the name of this vision that we have of a utopia. Well, you can see how destructive and how evil that was. So it’s very clear from the Gospel passage that what we’re called to is this extraordinary work of knowing the Christ and understanding what he’s about.

And these men ultimately developed a great, great capacity to see this Christ and know him. Now, let’s look in the other two readings because the first one, I think, gives us an image. It’s this image of Peter much later in his career as a follower of Christ. Christ has already died and rose and ascended to the Father. Here’s Peter living out this empowered life that God has promised. And one of the things that we see in him is the most Extraordinary freedom.

And I love that image that when one is in touch with the truth, one is truly free. One cannot be held, cannot be imprisoned, cannot be used. One of the great things that motivates the world, unfortunately is fear. And I love so often in the scriptures where it says that once you lose the fear, once fear is gone, the fear of death, the fear of loss, once you get past that, then all kinds of extraordinary, wonderful things can happen to you. And so what this story is about is about the freedom that is given to a person who is in touch with the truth. And the story is beautiful in sense of here’s a man destined.

The man is destined to try to destroy Jesus. Excuse me, to destroy Peter. I’m alright. To try to destroy Peter. And what he’s doing is imprisoning him. And he’s already killed one of the other disciples and he’s saying that now I’ll imprison this guy.

And these people really love it. The Jews love when we kill these people because they sense that we’re destroying this truth. And so people who are caught in the illusion love that someone’s going around destroying the truth. And so they. So we find Peter in this story, not just in a prison, but I mean, it’s a wonderful story of he’s got two guards on either side of him, his feet are changed, he’s in a cage, but his feet are chained. And he’s got, you know, all these other people outside of his cell and they’re all watching him.

And into that extraordinary security, so to speak, comes an angel, you know, who just says, hey, come out, we can leave this. And the guards don’t wake up, the guards don’t see him. He walks out, the gate itself opens and there’s extraordinary freedom. And he’s able to go down an alley, down a street so that he can go and continue the work. There is no chaining the truth. There is no chaining a person who truly is free.

And the truth truly does set us free. So that’s one image we have of what it means to understand and to know the Christ is we experience enormous freedom. And then Paul is interesting in his passage in the second reading. It’s all about effectiveness. Paul is toward the end of his ministry and there’s not really a whole lot of humility in Paul. It’s not pride or arrogance.

It’s just a pretty honest appraisal of the fact that he has been blessed and he has been touched throughout his life by a power that goes way beyond his own capacity to Accomplish things. He’s describing a life that is extraordinarily successful. He’s worked hard, he’s finished the race. He’s kept the faith. He’s awaiting the award. He knows that this whole thing has been given to him as a gift and that he has somehow been empowered by the Spirit to accomplish all these tasks.

And he’s been rescued and cared for through all this. Well, one of the things I love about this passage is that it gives one pause to reflect upon the fact that Paul’s life was anything but perfect. It was anything but free of negative things that had happened to him. But in all those things, in everything that he went through and all the setbacks or the disappointments or whatever, he really sees himself as one who has conquered, who has been effective, who has been really, truly capable of doing the work that God has called us to. I don’t know how one reaches that point exactly, but it’s so important for us when we’re feeling the freedom that we have, that the truth gives us, that we also feel effectiveness, that we feel that we’re able to do things. And there’s an interesting balance that is called for in this, because the ego always wants very much to kind of have a sense of the way things are going.

That’s what I think really messed up Peter and. And Paul in their early ministry, in their early life, both of them. And I think it’s so interesting. We have two figures that are such powerful preachers and teachers who’ve had some rather checkered past, and they really didn’t come together naturally from the beginning. They were very resistant and were caught in their own images of what was right. And that conversion, you know, is really an interesting part of the Christian walk that we do go through periods of conversion.

And the more intense the conversion, in a sense, the more effective the ministry. So the further we’ve held back from the truth sometimes, the more the truth is so extraordinarily valuable. But one of the things that we see in both of them is this struggle to come to a balance in their life. And, you know, Paul’s was a very dramatic turnaround. He had that experience of recognizing the horror that he really was persecuting, the one that he was trying to serve, you know, and then in Peter, we see him not being able to even be present for Jesus. So he too, had a sense of maybe persecuting the Christ in a way of not.

Not supporting him and not being with him. It’s fascinating that that disposition of resistance and failure seems so much to be connected to someone’s freedom and effectiveness. So maybe we could take from that, is that one of the major issues that we have to be is honest and straightforward in examining and watching, silently watching, without being. Being angry or judging the fact that we have been way off and somehow being able to accept the reality of our mistakes, of our misconceptions. It’s funny that there are times I’ve found myself doing this and other things and other people I know do it. But when somebody tries to point out to you some kind of major fault that you have, and if you haven’t had a chance to sort of work through it or process it yourself, and they say, well, you know, you’re really not thinking this through very clearly, and you’re not really in the truth on that issue.

And I don’t know what it is, but I hope you have the same problem or I’m going to feel real lonely. That there’s a kind of resistance to that, a deep resistance. Like, what do you mean? How can you say that about me? I can be extremely defensive when somebody is catching me off guard and I’ve been shown up, sort of exposed, found out. And all that just underscores for me is how hard it is to really accept our failures, or another way to say it, how when we can’t accept our failures and be more patient with ourselves, with our shortcomings, then it’s very difficult to be changed and transformed.

But as I began this homily, we were looking at models and how we are to see these people, these people that we really do. I mean, they’re famous and they seem very powerful, but really, very clearly, their story is our story. And it’s always the story of a kind of vulnerability to evil, to misconceptions, to illusions, people getting caught in those, struggling through those, finally seeing through them, accepting, having to work with the grieving process of looking at what they’ve done that’s wrong. You wonder, how did Peter get past his guilt and shame over what he did? That always fascinating story of Judas who did something horrible, and then his only response was suicide. And Peter did something horrible, and his response was weeping and surrender and submission to Jesus and wanting to do exactly what he called him, to that image of moving through this story of other people’s lives and then realizing, no, that’s what we go through, and that’s what we need to be in touch with.

And so we need to see all the aspects of their life and realize that their lives, not unlike ours, I mean, all the elements it would make sense that God would place in the Scriptures stories of people who have all the same elements in their lives that we have. And so he goes back to these images of these people and pay attention and see the failures and the struggles that they have. But then watch how they dealt with them, Watch how God dealt with them, how the Spirit moved in them and used their weaknesses to turn into strengths, use their failures so that they would become even more effective in what they were doing, and then to delight in their maturity, which was a kind of inner peace and inner freedom. No one could stop them, no one could lock them up. And not only were they free to move about, but in their freedom they were extraordinarily effective. So remember that it begins with knowledge of who Christ is, knowledge of what this world is about, and entering into the reality of life and entering into what is surrendering to that truth and feeling the power and the strength and the freedom that we have then to move about and to be as effective in our own way, in our own unique position in this world as were those great saints and martyrs and those that went before us.

Sa Closing Prayer Father, on this Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, we ask you to bless us with greater awareness of our destiny as one who follows Christ and longs to experience the transforming grace that comes with a life filled with struggle, freedom, peace and effectiveness in bringing about the kingdom. The music in our program was composed and produced by Ryan Harner for this show. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher, a listener supported program is archived and available on our website pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com and available anytime, anywhere and for free on our podcast Finding God in Our Hearts. You can search and subscribe to Finding God in Our Hearts and anywhere you download your podcasts. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you. You can make a one time or recurring tax deductible donation on our website pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com we thank you for your listenership and your continued support.

Without it, this program would not be possible. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a production of the Pastor Pastoral Reflections Institute, a non profit in Dallas, Texas dedicated to enriching your spiritual journey. Executive Producer Monsignor Don Fisher produced by Kyle Cross and recorded in Pastoral Reflections Institute Studios. Copyright 2024.