In St. Faustina’s diary, Jesus tells her that He has this great mercy going to waste simply because few can believe it. No one really trusts his mercy. (Presumably because we all are expert judgers but not expert mercy-givers, so it’s easier to see God as a god of Judgment rather than a god of Mercy. It’s not exactly in our wheelhouse to forgive.) Mercy is expressed perfectly on the Cross where at that moment in time God could’ve exercised his judgment. One could scarcely think of a better time. That is our hope – that even at that point of massive disconnect between weakness of our performance (i.e. that of the Apostles) and ease of standard (don’t kill God, for heaven sakes!) –mercy was shown. Forgiveness by God redefines us. Simon was called “Peter” in Matthew 16 but then a verse or two later was re-christened “Satan” after he’d sinned in suggesting Jesus avoid the cross. You could say this was accurate; Peter was “the rock” when he proclaimed Christ as Messiah and Peter was “Satan” when he tried to get Jesus to avoid the Crucifixion. But Jesus forgives and the Lord calls him “Peter” again.
I’m always amazed at how even the spiritual life can become something of our own creation, of how even prayer and fasting and almsgiving be of our mix and God be treated as an onlooker to be pleased rather than participant and guide.
(Excellent Divine Mercy post here, by the way, from the prolific Karen Hall.)
How much there is to like about St. Peter! He is "everyman", the apostle most of us can most relate to of that disparate band.
His words are so often my own: “Don’t go there Jesus,” I would likewise say. Then too I love Peter’s saying, “Lord, you will not wash my feet!”. There’s something in that impulse that is familiar, in not wishing that Jesus lower himself by serving us. To simultaneously save his dignity and our embarrassment given the disparity of rank. And yet that is a poisonous attitude and Jesus starkly answers that He must, and that is good to know so that we can expect what we have no right to expect. I’d read somewhere that there is a great leveling sentiment inbred in Irish culture: “Are you acting above your station?” would be a typical accusation. And yet level seems the opposite of the way the Founder intends. Peter, as leaders will, had to act “above his station” not on his own volition but for the fact that it was ordered by Christ, the highest authority...
Our pastor makes himself so transparent in liturgy and in homily as to be invisible. You could hear a year of sermon’s and not hear a personal pronoun. So it made for a dramatic moment when he related at Holy Thursday’s Mass how the office of the priesthood is of God and the man in the office often nothing special. The gulf can render the faith incredible, as in not credible, and unbelievable. He said that in the past some of his priest friends had said or done things that were greatly wounding and at the time he felt great anger, but now he sees their transgressions as gifts for they allowed him to see what his sins are like.
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