FEAST OF SAINTS PETER AND PAUL JUNE 28/29, 2014 Ever where you go these days, people are talking about or watching the World Cup in Brazil. I was in a store the other day and they were waiting for a time sensitive package from UPS. When it finally arrived, the driver apologized and said he had stopped off to watch the soccer game !! How many Brazilian flags have you seen lately? Actually whenever any of our own sports teams are headed for championship seasons, the same kind of hype and excitement happens. It certainly demonstrates how attracted we are to figures who become larger than life because of their exceptional talents and gifts. We are fascinated by their success and influence and part of us would like to be like them. We have celebrations and parades touting their successes. The same holds true in our Christian faith tradition. We keep holidays and holydays of important figures so that we are reminded of what is possible when we surrender ourselves wholeheartedly to our faith. This weekend’s celebration is a case in point: we have larger than life figures in Sts. Peter and Paul so that we might draw inspiration from them courage from their faithfulness. Jesus tells Peter in today’s gospel that he is the rock on which the church will be built. Peter is known as the Apostles to the Jewish nation; Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles, bringing the message of the Gospel to the non-Jews at the time. But what we celebrate is more than these two great men; they represent all believers who come to faith and knowledge of Christ and who live by that faith each day. As with all our saints, we do not worship Peter and Paul; we seek their guidance and courage as we pursue our own faith journey. We hold them up as models and hope that we can be as faithful in our own way as they were in theirs. And we pray that as God worked through them, so too will God work through us to spread the message of salvation in our world today – a world that desperately needs to good news more than ever before.