By Most Rev (Dr) Prakash Mallavarapu –
Archbishop of Visakhapatnam
We prayed in the Morning Prayer on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul saying, “Be with your Church, O Lord!” Well, this prayer should be our prayer every day! Church as the (New) People of God is founded on the foundations of the faith of the Apostles.
Our Church today is the same Church that came into being in the Apostolic times but grew into the worldwide community of beliefs with all the complexities of an organization, with structures and institutions.
What holds the Church together is the one Creed that is confessed and the direction this Creed gives to live one’s life as a believer.
Let us take this occasion of celebrating the feast of Saints Peter and Paul and the commemoration of the martyrs of Rome to reflect on the Church that we belong to and how we are called to be the Church in these challenging times.
Church Universal and Church local
That the church lived through more than twenty centuries is true to the words of Our Lord, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it” (Mt 16: 18).
Peter’s confession of faith is the rock on which the Lord declared that He will build His Church. This faith is handed on down the centuries and generations after generations across the nations and cultures make the confession of the same faith accepting and proclaiming Jesus Christ as the Son of the Living God.
The believers in the present age as in the past generations are proclaiming Jesus Christ as the “Son of the Living God.” The Apostles Peter and Paul, and countless number of believers in Jesus Christ lived and died for the one whom they believed as Son of God and Saviour of the world.
They died as martyrs for their faith in Jesus Christ. Not only those who died as martyrs but all the members in the Church strive (or called to strive) to live with and for faith in Jesus Christ, and be prepared to sacrifice everything, even to sacrifice one’s life.
Though not every believer manifests the same levels uncompromising perseverance in their faith in Jesus Christ, there is that basic faith which keeps him or her drawn towards Jesus Christ the Son of the living God. This basic faith enables the believer to sacrifice or give up or put aside persons or things or attachments for the sake of Jesus Christ.
For the Universal Church and every local Church this confession of faith is that which sustains in the exigency of the Church through the history.
The manifestation of the life of faith in the /a given local Church – diocese, parish, village, locality — would depend on what the believers are ready to sacrifice or give up or put aside for the sake of Jesus Christ whom they believe and love.
It is a “preparedness” to die for the love of Jesus Christ and His way. Thanks be to God, there are at regular intervals in the long history of the Church individual believers who fully live and die, or put to death, for the sake of their faith.
The long list of Christian martyrs keeps telling the story of heroic Christian lives to inspire and encourage, strengthen, and challenge the rest of the believers in the Church. Martyrdom is not only by suffering physical violence and death but also there is the daily dying for the cause of faith and what faith expects of the believer!