The Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
May the Lord give you peace!
As we reflect today on the two great
Apostles, Saint Peter and Saint Paul, we might well ask what it was that led
each of these two men to lay down their lives for Christ Jesus and for his
Body, the Church, Peter by crucifixion and Paul by the sword.
A beginning to the answer we seek is found in
the words of the Psalmist: “Look to him that you may be radiant with joy, and
your faces may not blush with shame” (Psalm 34:6).
When do we blush with shame if not when we have
not been faithful to what is required of us; when we have not lived up to our
potential; or when we have not been genuine in word, deed, or thought? In a
word, we could say that we blush when we are not authentic or sincere.
Standing before their persecutors, the
Prince of the Apostles and the Apostle to the Gentiles both knew their lives
would be required because of their fidelity to preaching the Gospel of Jesus
Christ, to proclaiming the truth of Him who died and yet now lives.
 |
| Detail, painting in the church of Quo Vadis |
When confronted with the cross on which he
would be crucified upside down, Saint Peter surely recalled the words the Lord
Jesus spoke to him when he signified the kind of death the Galilean fisherman
would suffer: “Follow me” (John 21:19). By following his Master and Teacher in
death, Peter knew he would also follow him in life.
 |
| Detail, doors of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls |
Likewise, when confronted with the sword by
which his head would be severed from his body, Saint Paul surely realized anew
the words he wrote to the Church in Colossae: “He is the head of the body, the
church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead” and knew that his life
was hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 1:18; cf. Colossians 3:3), that he,
too, would live.
But, again, why this great confidence? Why
did they have no shame in proclaiming Jesus no longer dead? It is because they
knew the truth of what they proclaimed. If we could have looked into their eyes
we might have used the words the wizard Gandalf said to the Hobbit Pippin: “There
is no lie in your eyes.”[1]
There was no lie in the eyes of Peter or Paul, but only the conviction of
truth. Their faces did not blush with shame as they looked upon the end of
their earthly lives because they knew that their faces would soon be radiant
with the joy of Christ even as the face of Moses radiated the glory of the Lord
God (cf. Exodus 34:29).
They both knew Jesus’ face well, even
though Saint Paul did not know Jesus before his crucifixion and was not present
among the disciples when the Lord appeared to them before he ascended to the Father.
Saint Paul himself asks, “Have I not seen Jesus our Lord” (I Corinthians 9:1)? Jesus
certainly showed himself to Saint Paul on the road to Damascus when he said to
the Apostle, “Get up now, and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you for
this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and a witness of what you have seen
[of me] and what you will be shown” (Acts 26:16). What else was Paul shown?
On Easter morning, we are told that when
Saint Peter entered the tomb of our Lord, he “saw the burial cloths there, and
the cloth that had covered [Jesus’] head, not with the burial cloths but rolled
up in a separate place” (John 20:6-7). John entered the tomb, as well, saw the
cloths “and believed” (John 20:8). Saint Luke adds that Peter “went home amazed
at what had happened” when he saw the cloths (Luke 24:12). He must have seen
something more than simple cloths to believe in the Resurrection.
We know the burial cloth as the Shroud of
Turin, which shows - in a remarkable and inexplicable fashion – Jesus in death.
It is an image that has, since the invention of the photograph, taken on
greater importance as photographic negatives have shown aspects of the image
heretofore undetectable, aspects which have confirmed its authenticity. Seeing
an image of the dead Jesus would surely not have brought Peter to faith in the
Resurrection and filled him with amazement. What was that other cloth?
Two hours east of Rome, one can travel by
car to a tiny village in the mountains called Manoppello. Up until the recent
construction of the highways, arriving at this quiet village was no easy task.
There, in a church formerly dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel, is housed
il Volto Santo, the Holy Face.
 |
| PHOTO: Paul Badde |
It is a cloth woven of byssus, a type of
silk made from mollusks that, depending on the light, can be both transparent
and opaque, and cannot be painted or dyed. The cloth contains the image of a
man with long hair parted in the middle, with a broken nose, a swollen cheek,
open eyes, and a half-open mouth. It is an image that cannot be reproduced or
explained and that subtly changes as the light around it, in front of it, or
behind it changes.
The veil, called the sudarium, arrived in Manoppello in 1506 by the hands of a stranger
who entrusted it to Doctor Leonelli, who was sitting outside the church when
the stranger arrived. The doctor opened the package inside the church who, when
he saw the contents of the package, went immediately back outside only to find
the stranger gone without a trace.
It remained in the doctor’s family until
1608 when it was sold by Marzia Leonelli to a Doctor De Fabritiis to ransom her
husband from prison. Doctor De Fabritiis entrusted the veil to the Capuchin
friars at Manoppello, in whose keeping it remains today for the veneration of
the faithful.
The veil arrived in Manoppello from Rome,
where it was called the Veronica, the true icon, and venerated as the face of
Jesus. Unlike the Shroud of Turin, it is not he image of Jesus in death but
Jesus alive, at the moment of the Resurrection, or very soon thereafter. This veil
is that cloth that Saint Peter found “not with the burial cloths but rolled up
in a separate place.” Seeing this veil with the image of Jesus not dead but
alive explains why he “saw and believed” and left “amazed at had happened.” He
looked upon the face of God and his face could not blush with shame. With these
cloths, the Shroud and the sudarium, they had a witness to the truth of the
Resurrection that Jesus was dead and yet now lives!
It is this face - so filled with love and
mercy and preserved for us in the veil - that we, too, must seek. In looking
upon the face of Jesus, we will look upon everything we desire. We will look
upon the face of Truth Himself and he will look upon us with his discerning
eyes of just judgment and abiding mercy, the same eyes that turned to look at
Peter when the cock crowed (cf. Luke 22:61). Looking into his eyes, we, too,
will weep bitterly for our sins even as we experience the tenderness of his
mercy. We will be filled with peace and he will remove our shame.
With this confidence in the Resurrection,
which so marked the preaching of Saints Peter and Paul, we, too, will know that
“the Lord will rescue me from every evil threat and will bring me safe to his
heavenly kingdom” there to enjoy the vision of his face forever (II Timothy 4:18).
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment