An article by Father Matthew for the Summer edition of The Spire

I am writing this article in the days following the Feast of Pentecost, the celebration of that great outpouring of the Holy Spirit which brings to a close the great season of Easter. We are now in the period of Ordinary Time that will take us up to Advent. After the special focus on the dramatic events at the end of Christ’s time on earth, during Lent, Holy Week and Easter, it may be tempting to regard this present season as a time to take a break from all that - but, in fact, the church calls us to reflect during this season of Ordinary Time on the mystery of Christ in all its aspects. One striking aspect of the ‘mystery of Christ’ is the way ordinary people through baptism become members of Christ’s body and are entrusted with the task of continuing Christ’s work in the world. The Feast of Pentecost, at the transition between Eastertide and Ordinary Time, reminds us that the promised gift of the Holy Spirit enables us, the followers of Christ, to become an Easter people, whose lives are infused with the good news of the Resurrection, and who have the confidence to proclaim this good news in the world around us, all year round. The Spirit transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary - Ordinary Time reminds us that the whole year is consecrated to God, not just a few special days. The Acts of the Apostles tells the story of how the disciples, filled with the Holy Spirit, got on with the task of proclaiming the good news and leading more and more men and women to Christ. There are two very prominent characters in this story, ordinary men who become extraordinary servants of God: Peter and Paul. These two heroes of the faith share a Feast day on 29th June (this year celebrated on Sunday 28th). It may seem a little odd that they should have to share a day when most saints get a day to themselves. In fact they do both have another Feast: the Chair of Peter on 18th January, celebrating the apostles ministry in Rome, and the Conversion of St Paul a week later on 25th January (in modern times marking the beginning and end of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity). However the fact that they share a day in June reminds us that these two very different men complimented each other in the task of advancing God’s Kingdom. They worked for the same end, and ultimately shared the same fate of martyrdom in the city of Rome. Saint Peter was a fisherman from Galilee, and he was the first to be called by Jesus to leave his work and become a fisher of men. He stands out in the gospels as the most outspoken of the disciples, often putting his foot in it, but his answer to the most important question of all is absolutely spot on. “Who do you say that I am?” is a question which everyone who is confronted with the message of Jesus has to decide on for themselves. A prophet? A good man? A wise teacher? All of these fall short of the truth at the heart of our faith and which Peter boldly proclaimed: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God”. Our Lord gives Peter his name, which is a play on the word ‘rock’, and declares that he shall build His Church on this rock. Whether the rock is to be interpreted as Peter himself, or the faith he has just proclaimed, there can be no doubt that Peter is given a significant part to play, for he is also the one to whom the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven are entrusted. At this point Peter’s faith is still weak, for he does not understand that Jesus must suffer and die and his false bravado and lack of nerve emerge very clearly on the night Jesus was arrested. Yet Jesus still chose this man to carry out great work. After the resurrection Jesus gave him the opportunity to undo his earlier denials and then instructed him to care for and feed his sheep. On the day of Pentecost it was Peter who proclaimed the good news to all the crowds. Peter was the first disciple to work miracles and was the one who spoke before the Sanhedrin in defence of the gospel. Tradition has it that he made his way to Rome and led the Christian community there, until he was martyred by crucifixion during Nero’s persecution of the church. The story of Saint Paul is rather different. A faithful Jew who was an ardent persecutor of Christians, after his dramatic conversion experience on the road to Damascus he began to proclaim the gospel of Christ with even greater zeal. Peter had come to understand that the gospel was for Gentiles as well as Jews, but it was Paul who was to focus on bringing Christ to the Gentile world, and who stood up against those Gentiles, who wanted were believers, to be circumcised and follow Jewish dietary regulations. Paul journeyed extensively around the Mediterranean establishing and nurturing Christian communities, and in his letters left a great legacy for the whole church. Although they are first and foremost letters for individual churches, reflecting the real issues those Christians struggled with, they also contain powerful teaching which draws us deeper into the mystery of Christ and helps us to understand the significance of all that Christ did for us. Finally, like Peter, he bore witness to Christ through his death, a death he accepted readily in order that he could be with Christ. These two ordinary men were called by Christ and enabled by the Holy Spirit to do extraordinary work. As followers of Christ, we should imitate their zeal for the faith, and their love for Christ and his Church. Father Matthew