Lenten lessons from Saint Peter

This week’s Lenten focus on conversion and the old Confiteor takes us to “the holy Apostles, Peter and Paul.” I always liked the description an Australian priest friend once applied to them: they were “two guys with histories.” And, in some ways, not particularly nice guys. Which is perhaps why they are apt intercessors for us sinners.

St. Peter has something of a tempestuous personality, perhaps not unusual for somebody who spent a lot of time on the water, including wanting to walk on it. He’s certainly not a retiring personality, though neither are his fishing buddies, the “sons of thunder,” James and John.

An early episode with Peter stands out. Jesus wants to preach to the crowd on the shoreline and uses Peter’s boat as a floating pulpit. Afterwards, He urges Peter to go out into the deep and drop lines for a catch. Peter is somewhat dismissive, insisting he’ll worked all night with nothing to show for it. But he’s open enough to indulge the Nazarene carpenter and landlubber, which is all the opening Jesus needs. Peter’s nets are filled to the breaking point with the sea’s bounty.

What is telling is Peter’s reaction. It’s not mere astonishment or curiosity. Peter recognizes a profound sign in what has happened and says to Jesus, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” (Lk 5:8). Peter, like any pious Jew, recognizes the divine presence in his midst. And, like Isaiah (6:5-7) before him, he acknowledges his sinfulness.

The human reaction to God was captured well by the German Lutheran theologian Rudolf Otto. He speaks of God as the Mysterium tremendum et fascinans, the great and frightening Mystery that fascinates us. Faced with God’s holiness, our first impulse is to withdraw (think Adam and Eve hiding in the Garden). At the same time, God attracts us. We want to stay. Something fascinates us about Him.

The key to conversion is allowing that fascination to overcome the impulse towards flight. Jesus didn’t flee from Peter, even knowing how fickle the apostle would be. Even after Peter’s denial of Jesus in the High Priest’s courtyard–a denial Jesus foretells–Luke mentions an important detail. After the cock crows, “the Lord turned and looked at Peter” (Lk 22:61). Again, Jesus doesn’t deny Peter, though Peter denied Jesus.

And Jesus, after the Resurrection, even gives this “sinful man” a threefold opportunity to repair his threefold denial (Jn 21:15-19). And it happens after another miraculous catch of fish!

Peter’s behavior is instructive to us sinners. First, it should teach us not to flee from God. God is always ready to receive the sinner who acknowledges his sinfulness: He even outpaces him, as did the father of the Prodigal Son. The only one who can separate me from God (cf. Rm 8:35-39) is … me, either by my flight or by my insistent persistence in evil.

Second, we learn the value of contrition. After their betrayals, Peter and Judas both wept. The difference is that Peter’s tears were contrite, recognizing he had done wrong and repenting of it. Judas’s tears were merely of remorse, recognizing he had done wrong but despairing of forgiveness. He succumbed to the temptation we all face: how could God ever forgive me? It’s a weird pride: even God’s mercy hasn’t managed to encounter so consummate a sinner as moi.

Peter is, in many ways, not a model, at least during the three years of Jesus’ public ministry. When it came to his own interests, Peter could be full of bravado. When it came to Jesus, that bravery collapsed.

What is important about Peter, though, is that he knew himself and, with God’s grace, he came to know himself even better. It’s why he could sin greatly, but also repent.

The Polish poet Roman Brandstaetter wrote about that Holy Thursday night in the High Priest’s courtyard. He describes a pack of devils chanting a litany to Peter:

O Peter, the rock, patron of denies; patron of those quaking in fear; patron of those running away; patron of those in hiding; patron of those feigning indifference; patron of those who shut their eyes; patron of those distancing themselves from the fire.

Those titles could fix a man in despair. But Peter does not stop there because, in the author’s words, he also sees, “an angel crossing the courtyard, his whole body trembling, with the head of a rooster.” And it is in recognition of that grace that Peter can repent.

But what’s also significant is that, despite these real flaws, Peter is also the recipient of “the keys of the kingdom.” Jesus conveys the ability to forgive sins to all the Apostles (Jn 20:23). But he specifically entrusts the power of binding and loosing, the promise of what he binds or loosens upon the earth will be upheld in heaven, to Peter (Mt 16:19). Peter, who needs his sins to be forgiven, is nevertheless entrusted with the continuation of the essential work of Jesus: forgiving sins. Because there is no other reason for Jesus’s coming than “for us and for our salvation,” as we affirm every Sunday in the Profession of Faith. If we really believe that, then that work must continue.

But that work is not an abstraction: Jesus forgave “men’s” sins. Jesus makes it possible to forgive men’s sins. But that possibility needs to be applied in the concrete. And Jesus entrusts that concrete application to sinners by sinners, as long as they all want to stop sinning.

At least for the moment. At least in an honest effort. At least to let God work on them.

I said earlier that Peter sailed out onto the open Sea of Galilee, perhaps not wholly convinced about Jesus’s recommendation but “open enough” to take the risk. God only needs a little crevice to blast our aperture open wide–if we are willing to let Him. This Lent, let’s let Him.