Today the Church sets before us the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul: the two mighty pillars of the Church; St. Peter, the Apostle to the Jewish Nation, and St. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles. They both certainly were different people with different temperaments. It is interesting to note the personalities of both Peter and Paul. Peter was impetuous— on Holy Thursday night telling Jesus that he would die with him if necessary (John 13:37) but later that night he denied he knew him. Paul was a controversial character in his own way. He had a fiery personality. In his early life he channeled that fire towards persecuting the Christians in Jerusalem, even witnessing the death of Stephen, the first martyr for Jesus (Acts 8:1). After his conversion, Paul’s preaching was fiery and upset the Churches.
As we look at the personalities of Peter and Paul, we see that God called them to use their personalities to spread the Gospel—Peter to use his impetuous love to look after the flock, and Paul to use his training as a Pharisee and his strength of character to ensure that the non-Jewish people would be welcomed into the Church. It is a reminder to us that our talents and our weaknesses too can become God’s means of helping others, if we allow. We don’t have to be perfect for God to work through us; God can work through us, faults and all, as he did with Peter and Paul.
