For 29 June 2022, The Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles, based on Acts 12:1–11

In his personal memoir of life in a Soviet prison camp, the Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote these extraordinary words: “Bless you prison, bless you for being in my life. For there, lying upon the rotting prison straw, I came to realise that the object of life is not prosperity as we are made to believe, but the maturity of the human soul.”[1]

What was it exactly that he learnt in the gulag that was the key to his maturity? Solzhenitsyn recounts: “gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts”. The moment Solzhenitsyn came to maturity was the moment when he realised his own need for personal conversion and inner transformation as a human being and that a change of mind (literally, metanoia) rather than a change of circumstances was the key to his inner freedom. This is why he could genuinely bless his prison cell in the end. His second realisation was that there is no more effective, quick and lasting path to growth in maturity than embracing suffering. here he echoes the sentiments of St Paul in Romans 5:3-5, “we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,  and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame”.

Today we celebrate the feast of St Peter and St Paul. These two men suffered and were shamed for their witness to the Gospel. But what I find so engaging about our two readings today – from the Acts of the Apostles and the Second Letter to Timothy respectively – is how they offer a window into the journey of personal maturity both men have arrived at by this point, when understood in the context of the wider canon of Scripture.

Most of what we know of St Peter comes from the Gospels. Here he is shown as a man who oscillated between fierce loyalty to Jesus and impetuosity in acting on it on one hand, undercut by a basic non-comprehension of the enormity of who Jesus really is and what His mission may demand. In today’s Gospel, we do see the confession of Peter that Jesus is Lord – but only two verses further on from the end of today’s reading, Peter takes Jesus aside and begins to rebuke him in response to Jesus’ warning about His coming Passion and death. Peter, impetuous and valiant, says: “Never, Lord! “This shall never happen to you!”. Recall too at the beginning of the passion drama when Peter jumps in to protect Jesus from arrest (John 18:10) in Gethsemane, still obtuse in not understanding or not acquiescing to the will of God.

We too have something to learn from Peter’s attitude here. The Baptist teacher Oswald Chambers remarked that “one of the hardest lessons to learn comes from our stubborn refusal to refrain from interfering in other people’s lives. It takes a long time to realize the danger of being an amateur providence, that is, interfering with God’s plan for others. You see someone suffering and say, “He will not suffer, and I will make sure that he doesn’t.” You put your hand right in front of God’s permissive will to stop it, and then God says, “What is that to you?”[2]

The problem is, running away from your own suffering and encouraging others to do the same only makes another people suffer in the long run – if I don’t carry my own cross, it will end up being borne by another. There are no ‘get-out-of-the-cross free cards in this life. Consider the example of Malchus, the guard who had his ear chopped off because of Peter’s attempt at saving Jesus which would have cost humanity true salvation.

All that being said, by the time of our first reading today, we see a marked change in Peter’s attitude.