"From Sinners to Saints" - Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul homily

The Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul Apostles.

Rare occasion falls on a Sunday.

We wear red to represent the blood they shed for Christ as martyrs.

And this feast is a reminder for us to pray for our leaders.

Pray for Pope Leo every day.

and Cardinal McElroy, the Archbishop of Washington With an eye on Friday, the 4th of July, I to be praying for President Trump and our national and local leaders.

I've been praying for presidents every day by name for over 30 years, some for whom I did not vote and some of whom I was not a fan.

But out of respect for the office, pray for the man.

The Church has great respect for the offices of Saints Peter and Paul.

namely as apostles, Peter the office of governance and teaching, primarily in Paul with preaching and mission.

But it's kind of a mouthful to say this, saints, Peter and Paul, apostles, there's two titles surrounding their names.

And we shouldn't get caught up in titles of honor.

Let it go to our heads or define ourselves that way.

think there's one title that we should all be defined by, that's child of God.

But let's be fair, Church.

If we don't get carried away or caught up in titles of honor, let's not get caught up titles of dishonor.

There are many people in the pews in this Church and in every Church who have given themselves the title of phony or fraud or hypocrite.

And they stay neutral spiritually.

So these two men were in that situation at some point, having sinned greatly against Christ.

Peter denied Christ three times in the passion.

Paul persecuted the followers of Christ.

And even with Paul, it was an issue.

If you read his letters and the Acts of the Apostles, people said, this is the one that was so against us.

Now he's with us and leading us.

So they addressed it, their own hypocrisy.

They dealt with it, they adjusted.

Thank God they did not stay in neutral.

In the midst of their wounds, of their own sin, they had to follow this calling of apostles.

So we know that they're sinners.

We don't include that in the title today of the feast.

But the beautiful thing about this feast for me has always been that they are sinners.

And Jesus knew that when He appointed them to be the leaders of the Church.

He wasn't so caught up by their sin like, what do do now?

I need to find the first Pope and the biggest missionary.

He saw it all along.

Just like He saw your sin and mine from the cross and the cause when they're all along given that sin.

Now thus in the sanctuary, we've heard the call to be clergy.

We've had to deal with the whole thing about being a phony or hypocrite, as Peter Paul did.

And we have to get over ourselves.

He's called me to this, and I'm struggling with that.

Lord, do you know who you called?

It's not easy.

But with his grace, his help, you get over it to the point where you go forward.

And for Peter, Paul, ourselves, for each of us,

Confession removes the hypocrisy.

Every time.

Last Monday we had the Gospel with the wood in your eye, the splinter in your brother's eye.

He's addressing hypocrisy.

He said, you know, remove them.

And that's what confession does.

It removes all that stuff.

And grace of confession, grace of Eucharist starts to change us.

That's what Saint Peter and Paul experienced.

The grace changed them.

that maybe they started to follow this identity as apostles and the confidence in God.

He's calling you too.

However you feel about yourself, this feast can take you out of it and say, yeah, I've got issues.

We all do.

But the Church has always had issues and a call with those issues ongoing.

Give grace a chance.

Peter and Paul did, and now we celebrate them as saints.

Yeah, they were sinners, but by God's grace they became saints and we define them as saints.

That is the goal.

That is why God created us to be saints in heaven with him.

Doesn't mean we're perfect.

And we're hearing cries of imperfection.

We're not perfect.

Thank you, my friend, for making the point.

We're not a perfect Church.

We started this way.

Our leaders were not perfect.

But we get over the hump with that, accepting it.

He is perfect.

And he can take us to places where we don't think we can go, where he's calling us to go.

Saints Peter and Paul were this way, and they became that way.

It happened for them.

can happen for us.