by Fr. Rich Andre, C.S.P.
June 30, 2025

Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul on June 29, 2025, at Old St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Chicago, IL. This homily is based on the vigil readings: Acts 3:1-10; Psalm 34; Galatians 1:11-20; and John 21:15-19.

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Today is one of seven solemnities in the Church year that takes precedence over the regular Ordinary Time readings when it falls on a Sunday. If you don’t remember celebrating the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, don’t feel bad: it’s been eleven years since it last fell on a Sunday.¹

The readings today reflect on the lives of Peter and Paul. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul explains how God called him to his ministry both from before his birth and how God continued revealing the nature of the ministry in the years after his conversion experience. In our gospel, the resurrected Jesus gives Peter the chance to affirm his love for Jesus three times while sitting together at a charcoal fire on the Sea of Galilee, perhaps to let Peter know that Jesus has forgiven him for Peter denied Jesus three times at a charcoal fire on Good Friday. Our first reading tells of one of Peter and John’s first acts after Pentecost, calling on Jesus’ name.

Today, we reflect on the nature of the Church itself. Perhaps the best approach today is to ask how we are called to be similar to both Peter and Paul; not on how we are to be different from them.

Even when we try to deny our membership within Christ’s Body, God still offers us his boundless mercy. Let’s celebrate that!

There are two classic homilies to give on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul. The first goes like this: the Church needs people like Peter and people like Paul, those who will be a rock of stability, and those who will go out to the edges of society. The second one says: the Church needs everyone to be a bit like Peter and a bit like Paul.

Both approaches seem too simplistic. The Church surely did not intend that Peter and Paul demonstrate the only two ways we can be Christian disciples. None of us are first-century Jews from the Middle East, and less than half of us here are male.

None of us are called to carbon copies of either Peter or Paul. But on this great solemnity, we can explore how our discipleship can share a lot of characteristics with both Peter and Paul.

Peter and Paul were both called to their ministry by supernatural forces. When Peter recognized that Jesus was the Christ, Jesus said that this had been revealed to Peter not by flesh or blood, but by the Father. Likewise, Paul wrote to the Galatians that he was called to ministry from within his mother’s womb, and even after his conversion experience, he continued discerning his ministry for three years before consulting any other apostles. Such supernatural calls don’t just happen to Peter and Paul. God has unique plans for each of us, and God can speak directly to each one of us, too!

Both Peter and Paul were flawed. Peter seems to be the kind of person who couldn’t stand silence in a conversation, and was always accidentally putting his foot in his mouth. Paul was so fiery in the early years after his Damascus experience that the apostles sent him back to Tarsus for years to smooth out some of his rough edges.

Peter and Paul were daring pioneers. As someone asked in our Bible study last Sunday, when the crippled man outside the Temple leaped up and began to walk at Peter and John’s command in the name of Jesus, how surprised do you think Peter and John were? How does God call each of us to take risks?

In our collective imagination, we usually think of Paul as the great preacher and the champion of diversity. But it was Peter who preached more eloquently than Paul and who received the original vision that God intended the Gentiles to be full members of the Body of Christ. We often think of Peter as a source of instruction, unity, and stability. But it was Paul’s writings that united Christians throughout the known world, and it was Paul who made the effort to keep in ongoing contact with numerous Christian communities across Asia Minor and Europe.

I think today’s solemnity offers us three challenges.

First, there’s a challenge to stretch ourselves. Even when we think that we don’t have the gifts to accomplish something for God, God may surprise us. Jesus chose to build his Church on a man who had insufficient faith to walk on water, who criticized God’s plan for the salvation of the world, and who denied Jesus three times during his moment of greatest need. Even though Paul wasn’t the greatest public speaker — we have a story in the Acts of the Apostles about someone falling asleep while Paul was preaching — even so, his skills with the written word have made him the most important theologian in Christian history.

Second, there’s a challenge to focus on the good in all people. Everyone has flaws. If we dismiss people who are imperfect, there will be no one left for us to love… and every one of those people we dismiss has gifts to share with us. Saints don’t have to be perfect; they need to be friends of God and friends of people. Peter and Paul have inspired millions of people to Christian discipleship; even if they are saints, they still had flaws like other humans!

The third challenge is to apply the first two challenges to our relationship within the institutional Church. If we have problems with a group or an individual within the Church, let’s make the effort to name with whom we specifically disagree, rather than saying we disagree with “the Church,” as if we are not full members of the Church ourselves. Christ calls each of us to proclaim the gospel even if we think we don’t have sufficient eloquence, to welcome others even if we disagree with some decisions made by the hierarchy, and to promote unity even if we disagree with other members of Christ’s Body.

Let us not rob Peter to pay Paul. As the theologian Rick Gaillardetz wrote: “to be a faithful Catholic is to accept the basic legitimacy of the Church’s teaching office, even if one may have some objections about how that office is structured and exercised in practice.”

Nor let us not rob Paul to pay Peter. We are all called by God to be evangelists. As my former colleague Ruth Queen Smith said, “You are the unquestioned authority of your story. When you tell other people your life story, no one will ever tell you that you’re wrong.”

In our praise for Peter and Paul, let us not forget the other saints of old or the saints-in-the-making all around the world today. All saints are friends of God and friends of people. They — and we — all have stories to strengthen one another in faith. Just like the lives of Peter, Paul, and all the other saints before us, our lives can provide other people with examples of faithful discipleship.

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Notes: