When Grace Found Them… and Me!

A Personal Reflection on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul Matthew 16:13-19 Every year on this solemn feast of Saints Peter and Paul, I find myself pausing—not just in admiration, but in awe. These were not men born into sainthood. Peter denied Jesus when He needed him most. Paul hunted down the very followers of Christ with rage in his heart. And yet today, the Church doesn’t just remember them—we celebrate them as pillars of the faith. How did they get there? Not by perfection, but by surrender. Not because they were flawless, but because they let grace do the impossible in them. I look at my own life and see echoes of their stories. I’ve had my own moments of denial—not always with words, but in silence, in hesitation, in fear. And I’ve had my own moments of pride and blindness, where I was so sure of my way, I didn’t notice God quietly offering a better one. But like Peter and Paul, grace found me. Not when I had it all together, but when I was most lost. It didn’t shame me—it called me by name. It didn’t erase my past—it transformed it. That’s the power of God’s mercy: it makes saints out of sinners, preachers out of persecutors, and hope out of heartbreak. Peter and Paul remind me that heaven isn’t reserved for the blameless—it’s promised to the redeemed. So I keep walking, stumbling sometimes, but always getting up… because the same God who built His Church on shaky ground can build something sacred in me too. Blessings Fr. Jhack