Sunday, June 29, 2008 Lagura: Blessed with 2 Peters and a Paul By Fr. Flor Lagura, SVD in the service of the word
GOD has always smiled on Loboc, a lovely town gently nestled between lush rolling hills and nourished abundantly by the river bearing the same name. Today, Loboc will experience an influx of hundreds of the faithful from beautiful Bohol as well as from other provinces in our country as these pilgrims and fiesta-goers worship God and honor the two great saints the Church has been blessed with: the firm-as-a rock St. Peter and the charismatic St,. Paul.
Peter, volatile though he was in his years of formation under the Lord, became sober and stable after being humbled by his Holy Week experience. Shortly after the resurrection when Peter was with the other disciples at the shores of Galilee, Jesus came and asked him three times, “Do you love me?” (Note that in the gospel which was written in koine or ‘peoples’ Greek our Lord spoke of --instead of eros (sensual love) or philia(fraternal love)-- agape, which means pure, disinterested love solely for the welfare of the beloved.) Twice Peter answered Jesus, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love (philia, meaning brotherly love) you.” Only on the third time did Peter use the word agape.
Peter, the first Vicar of Christ received in answer, neither a pat on the back, nor a handshake or a hug but the command both pastoral and practical in its import: “Feed my sheep!” He became the stabilizing centripetal force in the Church.
Paul, who as Saul once terrorized Christians with fanatic zeal and fury also got a question from Jesus as the former lay prone and humbled on the ground. (Falling from a horse is not biblical but an artistic construct.) “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” The initial encounter with the Lord led to a process of conversion which lasted a number of years out of which came a zealous apostle and missionary to the gentiles. Since they proved more receptive to the gospel than the Jews, Paul nourished the gentiles with his preaching and writing. Paul represents the outgoing or centrifugal force in the Church.
Over the years Lobocanons and Bol-anons have had many Pedros and Pablos. Inhabitants of Calunasan, one of Loboc’s bigger barrios, even swear that Blessed Pedro Calungsod hailed from their place and later became a seminarian-sacristan of the Jesuits who were based in the Loboc Mission. But that is another story.
Success and failures have marked the personal lives and dotted the socio-demographic map of these gentle and faith-driven people living in a valley bounded by gently rolling hills and nourished by the meandering river that leads its people, many of whom are stable and firm as rocks like Peter, while others are eager and energetic like the missionary-apostle Paul, to other seas, oceans and places of the world God has wonderfully created. Although different in approaches, they are one in the Lord as they bear the good news.
“Blest are you, Simon son of John! No mere man has revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. I for my part declare to you, you are ‘Rock,’ and on this rock I will build my church, and the jaws of death shall never prevail against it.” Matthew 16:17-19
