As we commemorate the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, let’s look at the virtue that is exemplified in these two pillars of the Church. The Church honors the two together because of how they together built the Church that has been passed down for 2,000 years.
Peter is the rock, providing the foundation and stability of the Church. He was the primary representative of Christ on earth after the ascension. Certainly, all the Apostles, and the bishops and priests that were ordained after them, act in persona Christi, but Peter holds a unique role and position.
Paul is the great evangelizer, taking the message of Christ to the gentiles. It is Paul that sets in motion the conversion of the world that we continue to work for today.
Together, they provide the foundation and leadership of the Church that gives stability and continuity, and the outward evangelism that takes the Church to every corner of the earth. Both are essential and Peter and Paul are the pinnacles of each function.
Honoring Sts. Peter and Paul is easy to justify, and we could spend all day discussing their accomplishments and legacy. That’s not what I want to do today. I want to focus on one aspect of their virtue.
Humility of Leaders
Humility provides the essential foundation for all the virtues, and humility is one of the defining characteristics of Peter and Paul. We often underestimate the importance of humility.
Faith, Hope and Love are the three big virtues we typically start with. These are incredibly important and exemplify the nature of Christianity, but the require a foundation. This foundation is the Person of Christ, but it is also the virtue of humility. There can be no faith, hope or love without humility.
St. Hildegard of Bingen writes about the ladder of virtues that leads to heaven. She outlines how we progress from one virtue to the next in the spiritual life. Interestingly, humility isn’t one of the steps. Instead, it is the foundation for all the virtues. Hildegard recognized that without humility, there is no virtue. (read more on St. Hildegard’s ladder of virtue)
A number of saints have held the same view of humility. It is absolutely essential for any other virtue.
Why is humility so important? Any virtue, without humility, is done for selfish reasons. That’s not virtue. That’s a projection of pride, the foundation of all sin.
Humility places us in our proper place. We are creatures created by God. God is superior to us. Any thought that we are more important or greater than God is a lie and leads to sin, death and separation from God. We have to accept our place in the order of creation.
This then extends to others. Pride leads us to think we are more important than other people, that our needs are greater than their needs. Such thinking is incredibly destructive. As soon as a place my needs above yours, it takes only a few small steps to justify any evil – slavery, genocide, abuse, theft, murder – all these are easy to rationalize if we are filled with pride and believe that we are more important than others.
Humility requires us to recognize the dignity of each person, and counters this selfish pride. Without humility, I can justify any action, but with humility, I am bound to respect the inherent dignity of each person and respect the life of each person.
This is particularly difficult for leaders. Being in a position of authority and power makes it very easy to succumb to pride. A leader of anything can rationalize why they are more important than others in the organization. This is dangerous and easily builds pride and sin. The influence of a person in a powerful position may be greater than others, but that does not change the inherent dignity of each person.
The humility of Sts. Peter and Paul is a great example of how humility needs to be lived. Both were powerful, confident, and influential leaders.
So, how does someone like Peter or Paul at the top of a hierarchy act confidently with power and maintain humility?
Neither Peter nor Paul were weak and neither failed to act decisively. This is our first lesson in humility. Humility is not weakness or passivity. Humility requires strength and power.
Christ on the Cross had the power to come down at any moment. He had the power to restrain, punish, kill or destroy those that persecuted Him. His humility restrained Him from those actions. It was His power, under His control, that demonstrated His humility.
Another person in the same position could not have demonstrated humility in such a way. We aren’t the Son of God with infinite power and might. Nailed to a cross, we would be stuck, unable to resist. This doesn’t mean a person couldn’t act with humility or pride in such a situation. Instead, it highlights how much greater Christ’s humility on the Cross was compared to what we are capable of.
The more powerful we are, the greater we are able to express our humility. The flip side of this is that the more powerful we are, the more we will be tempted by pride.
Peter and Paul both played tremendous leadership roles in the Church. I’m sure they were tempted with pride, both internally and to act on that temptation externally. They didn’t. They served Christ in everything they did. They recognized that all of their power was from Christ. None of their power, respect, influence of anything they possessed was from them. It was all from God, and they made that reality central to their lives. It was the foundation of their virtue.
Humility Built from Failure
I suspect the humility of Peter and Paul was grounded in and strengthened by their failures. In all of history, the two of them stand out at specific points in their lives as two of the greatest failures.
Peter, after boasting that he would readily die for Christ and is warned by Christ that he would deny Him three times. Then, just a few hours later, he goes ahead and denies Christ three times. It’s bad enough that he boasted of his courage and faithfulness and failed, but it is even worse that Jesus told him specifically that he would fail that very night.
Peter seems to be so filled with prideful confidence that the warning by Jesus was completely ignored by him. Peter needed to be humbled, and our Lord made sure the lesson was clear. Peter’s failure came immediately after the Last Supper, not days or weeks later, but a few short hours. Additionally, he didn’t fail once, but three times.
It is easy to think we would do better, but that’s pride. Peter was prepared for three years by Jesus to be the rock that would hold up the Church, and yet he still failed. Jesus even named him Rock – the meaning of Peter, to highlight the steadfastness that he would provide the Church. If Peter couldn’t remain loyal the night of Jesus’ arrest, we have to conclude we would have failed at least as badly.
This trifold failure was essential to Peter becoming the leader the Church needed. Peter saw what would happen if he didn’t rely on God’s strength and courage. He knew without question that alone he couldn’t remain faithful for even a few hours. We can learn a lot from this. We are lost without God’s grace.
Paul’s failure is equally monumental. Paul was the greatest student of the greatest teacher in Israel. He knew the Scriptures better than anyone else, and he dedicated his life to God.
Despite that, when the Messiah comes, Paul doesn’t recognize Him. After the resurrection, Paul firmly plants himself in opposition to Christ. If anyone in Israel should have recognized Christ and followed Him, it was Paul, and he went in exactly the opposite direction.
Paul was brilliant. We can see this in his writings. He was likely one of the smartest men to ever live. He was eloquent and persuasive, one of the greatest speakers in history. He was better educated than anyone else of his time.
All of this gave Paul a reason to be filled with pride, and he drank it up. He convinced himself that the Son of God was a threat to be fought. Paul relied on his own judgment over following the will of God.
Both of these men were completely humbled by their failures. Peter ran into the darkness and wept. It’s hard to imagine the depth of his shame when he realized failure, but we can see the aftermath. He craves the mercy of God and repents.
Paul’s shame drove him to a much longer repentance. He went into the desert for three years after Christ appeared to him on the road to Damascus. Paul doesn’t share what he did in those three years, but I think it is safe to assume there were three components. First, he repented and begged for mercy. Second, he reexamined all the Scriptures to understand who Christ was and how he could have been so wrong. Third, built the humility he needed from the core of his being so that he could follow God and never rely on his own strength again.
Both Peter and Paul were fundamentally and completely transformed by these experiences. They gave up their strength for the strength of Jesus Christ.
I love these two examples of failures. Peter and Paul did nothing to hide their failures. Most of history tells of the great victories of leaders. Battles won, nations conquered, and other successes. We read of the greatness of individuals, but this is all a lie. None of us have any power except that power granted by God.
Peter and Paul passed down their stories completely differently. They proclaimed their failures. They boasted of their weakness. They never claimed any honor or glory, but gave all praise to God. They made their failures the foundation of their strength.
This is the lesson of St. Hildegard. Our strength and our virtue begin with our humility. Peter and Paul taught this through their example. Neither claims any greatness. Both embrace their weakness and give thanks to God for helping them repent. They accepted the mercy of God and lived with a fire of humility and love. Nothing mattered to them except serving God.
This is the heroic humility we should strive for. How can we put God above us so that our every action is a humble act of service to Him?
The first step is simple. We must recognize as both Peter and Paul did that we are sinners who deserve nothing but punishment from God.
Yes, we deserve punishment. We are sinners – failures – who desperately need God’s mercy.
This is a message that few like to talk about today. We emphasize the mercy of God, but presumption is all too common. The mercy of God is central to Who God is, but there is more. The justice of God is also fundamental to Who God is.
We are not owed any mercy by God. When we sin, we reject God and place ourselves in a prideful position above God. Justice demands that be corrected, and punishment is the natural response.
God deserves our respect and honor. It is our obligation to serve Him, obey Him, and worship Him. This isn’t a choice. It is an obligation based on our insignificant position as creatures created by God, and His infinite goodness and majesty.
Our hope is that God desires mercy for us more than justice for Him. He is owed justice but God loves us so much that He wants to shower us with mercy and forgiveness.
What we cannot do is presume this mercy is owed to us. It isn’t. It is a gratuitous gift from God. To receive this gift, we must empty ourselves of pride and embrace humility. Remembering Jesus’ story of the Pharisee and the tax collector can help. We need to recognize we are sinners like the tax collector, bow our heads, and beg for God’s mercy.
As we honor Peter and Paul, we do not honor them for their greatness. That would be an act of pride since it requires a belief that an individual can be great. God is great and all honor and glory is owed to God.
We don’t honor the greatness of Peter and Paul, but their humility and service to God, their service to the Church, and their service to us. We also recognize that everything that Peter and Paul did, including their humility, was from God. They simply got out of the way and let God act through them. They rejected pride and accepted the grace God offered.
We are commanded to honor our father and mother. This commandment sets the foundation for the structure of the family. Likewise, we honor Peter and Paul because they are spiritual fathers to us, and in humility, we accept their example, their commands to the Church and their roles as leaders.
This honor we give recognizes that natural order set up by God, both in the family and in the Church. It begins by placing God first. We must never place anyone or anything above God. We must also recognize that any honor owed to a person is actually honoring the position of the person, a position granted by God. So, honoring our father and mother, honoring Peter and Paul, and honoring any leader should be an act of honoring God and the grace he has given those individuals.
Growing in Humility
Trying to develop humility is a path with traps and obstacles at every turn. The more we strive for humility, the further away it gets from us. When we resolve to work for humility, we are inadvertently focusing on our strength and abilities. Humility isn’t gained by our efforts. This is what makes it so rare and elusive.
Humility is gained by surrendering to God. We need to acknowledge our weakness. In the Mass, we say “I confess to Almighty God that I have greatly sinned, in my thoughts, in my words, in what I have done and what I have failed to do, through my fault, my fault, my most grievous fault…”
Do we really believe this? Do we believe we have greatly sinned? Do we believe our sins are through our most grievous fault?
Peter and Paul didn’t present themselves as “good people”. Today, there is a feeling that many hold: “I’m a good person.” Peter and Paul didn’t talk like that. It is a very dangerous way to think. They talked of their failures and weaknesses, and how the only things that were good from them were from God.
When Jesus is addressed as “good teacher”, he rebukes the man saying “no one is good except God alone.” Jesus is God, so addressing Him as good is correct, but the man didn’t recognize Jesus as God. Instead, he attributed being good to one he thought was a just a man.
This is important. I am not a “good person.” I am not good. Only God is good. Can you accept that you are not good either? It’s tough to accept. I can easily write that I am not good, but in my heart, do I really possess the humility to believe that? Probably not. I’m far from perfect. Intellectually, I know that everything good I have ever thought or done has only come about by the grace of God, but pride is insidious. It worms its way into our thoughts and corrupts us into thinking we are capable of being good.
We need to recognize that without God’s help and grace, it was only a few hours and the greatest of the Apostles denied Christ three times. Without God’s grace, what evil would we do?
When we recognize that we are helpless without God, then we can begin to grow in humility.
It is God’s grace that gives us the understanding and wisdom to recognize temptation. It is God’s grace that gives us the strength and fortitude to avoid sin. Most importantly, it is God’s grace that draws us back to Him after we sin to beg for His mercy.
The moment we think we are good enough, we have left humility and dove into the depths of pride. Peter, after decades of leading the Church willingly accepted martyrdom. He could have easily seen himself as highly accomplished. He could have viewed himself as a “good person.”
He didn’t. Peter saw his unworthiness. He saw that everything he had was a gift from God that he did not deserve. With such a humble foundation built over decades of surrendering to God, he asked to be crucified upside down because he felt he was unworthy to die as Christ died. This humble acceptance of his unworthiness does not deny the love Christ has for him. Instead, Peter clings to the love of Christ. He trusts Christ completely and loves God as much as he is capable.
The Joy of Humility
When we encounter humility, it is often through some humbling act that strikes at our pride. For Peter, he was humbled by recognizing how weak he was to deny Christ three times. The shame he felt was tremendous and he ran into the night and wept.
As we start on the path of humility, shame can be overwhelming. It hurts and can make us feel sick at how we have failed.
This is the experience of humility that most of us know. We don’t usually associate humility with joy.
This is the start of humility, but humility is the key to joy.
Our pride ties us to attachments. The big attachments are to wealth, power, fame and pleasure. They are driven by greed, pride, envy, lust and gluttony. These attachments enslave us. They are addictions that ensnare us and trap us. Trying to give up an attachment leads to a painful withdrawal.
When we start on the path of humility, it is typically in the form of one of these attachments being taken from us. Like a drug addict or alcoholic denied their fix, we suffer when an attachment is taken.
Our attachments can run so deep, just the thought of losing an attachment leads to anxiety and depression.
This is easy to see in both Peter and Paul. Peter thought his courage would overcome any threat and Paul thought his knowledge and position made him impervious to sin. Both were wrong and when they were confronted with their failures, they had a choice. They could remain attached to their pride or give up their pride in humility and embrace their failure and weakness. They chose the latter.
Their choice hurt. Peter wept in shame and Paul isolated himself for three years. Both continued to tell the stories of their failures for the rest of their lives. They did both to honor God and to remind themselves of their weakness.
We need to do the same. Anything we desire for our own sake, other than loving and serving God, is an attachment that leads to sin. We need to be humble and embrace our weaknesses.
Embracing our weaknesses does not mean we are weak. Peter and Paul both stood against the Roman Empire and were victorious over it. They stood with courage and fortitude, but they relied on the strength of Christ, not their strength. They also didn’t deny their roles. Peter and Paul both spoke with incredible boldness, but it was never about them. It was always about Christ.
They were freed of their attachments and their humility brought them great joy. Once we recognize who we are, we are free to be filled with the joy that comes from the love of God. Any other pleasure in this life is fleeting and unsatisfying. We will always long for more with a desire that can’t be satiated. The love of God, on the other hand, is completely satisfying, but the key to accepting this love is humility. God doesn’t withhold His love from us. Instead, we reject it when we fill ourselves with pride.
So, as we honor Peter and Paul for their failures and weakness, let us hold up our weaknesses and failures. Let us present to God all our faults and beg for His mercy. Then, as we bow before the Lord and let go of all our attachments, God will fill us with His love and mercy, and we will carry a joy that is unshakeable.
The Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul June 29th.