The feast of SS Peter and Paul gives us some very valuable lessons. Peter and Paul were the bedrock of the infant church, yet they were people with weaknesses - just like the rest of us. In fact Paul relates how God told him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor. 12:9-10)
We are fortunate that we know so much about both apostles, both from the evangelists (particularly Luke) and from Paul’s letters. Peter and Paul were very different people. Peter was a fisherman and probably not very well educated. He was a born leader but was headstrong, boastful and impulsive. However, he loved Jesus and was always ready to learn from his own mistakes. He was also willing to accept change, as he did when he baptised the gentile centurion Cornelius (Acts 10). “I truly understand that God shows no partiality but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” (Acts 10:34-35)
Paul, on the other hand, was a learned Pharisee and a Roman citizen. He persecuted the Christians with fanaticism, but God turned that fanaticism into a zeal which led him to preach Christ relentlessly to the gentiles in faraway places. Paul was loving, irascible, stubborn and fearless. It was necessary for a Jew to teach the gentiles, because as Jesus told the Samaritan woman: “Salvation comes from the Jews.” (John 4:22)
God showed that he works through misfortune. When Paul was beaten severely and imprisoned, his suffering became the means by which the jailer and his family became converts (Acts 16:25-40). God’s providence led both saints to Rome, where they and many other Christians were martyred. However the Roman Empire became the cradle where the young church was nourished and given the ability to spread, which it might not have done if it been confined to Palestine.