Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles

Courage! You... can! Don't you see what God's grace did with sleepy-headed Peter, the coward who had denied him..., and with Paul, his fierce and relentless persecutor? (The Way, 483)

It is Peter who speaks: Lord, do You wash my feet? Jesus answers: You do not understand what I am doing now; you will understand it later. Peter insists: You will never wash my feet. And Jesus explains: If I do not wash your feet, you will have no part with me. Simon Peter surrenders: Lord, not only my feet, but also my hands and my head. Faced by the call to total self-giving, complete and without any hesitation, we often oppose it with false modesty like Peter's ... May we also be men with a heart like the Apostle's! Peter allows no one to love Jesus more than he does. That love leads us to reply thus: Here I am! Wash me, head, hands and feet! Purify me completely, for I want to give myself to You without holding anything back. (Furrow, 266)

"And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches'', Saint Paul wrote. This sigh of the Apostle is a reminder for all Christians ‑‑ for you, too ‑‑ of our duty to place at the feet of the Spouse of Christ, of the Holy Church, all that we are and all that we can be; loving her faithfully, even at the cost of livelihood, of honor, of life itself. (The Forge, 584)

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