(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: https://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Mass-Blog-for-the-Solemnity-of-Saints-Peter-and-Paul-2025.mp3)
During her 55 years as a journalist, the late Barbara Walters posed tough questions to many world leaders. One question will forever cast shade on Walters’ journalistic legacy, however. During her 1981 interview with legendary Hollywood actress Katharine Hepburn, this movie star compared herself to a tree. Walters followed up with, “What kind of tree are you?”
From then on, comedians mocked Walters as a journalistic lightweight. But if she had interviewed Saints Peter and Paul, whom we celebrate this Sunday, her tree question would have been most appropriate. Scripture is full of analogies comparing leadership qualities to trees and plants. In Judges 9, for example, after Abimelech kills many in his family’s line of succession to achieve kingship, one relative escapes to tell a parable warning the people not to choose a ruler who is driven more by selfishness than service.
His fable has trees searching for a king to reign over them. They approach the olive tree, the fig tree, and the grape vine, but none wanted to leave their fruit-bearing jobs.
Desperate, they finally approach the buckthorn, and sensing desperation rather than good faith, it threatens them with fires that would “devour the cedars of Lebanon.”
Leadership qualities aren’t always obvious. So, what kind of trees were Saints Peter and Paul? Scripture shows they started out as plants that wouldn’t inspire anybody by their outward appearance. But by the grace of God, they were imbued with life-saving qualities worthy of parables.
Peter was a lowly fisherman when Christ saw in him a mustard-seed-size faith that would eventually grow into a huge refuge for others seeking shelter. In this Sunday’s gospel reading (Matthew 16:13-19), instead of asking Peter what kind of tree he was, Jesus asks him to identify the root of his faith.
“Who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter answers, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
This insight justifies him as the rock upon which Christ built our church.
And what of Paul, once a zealous persecutor of this church? In him God saw a way to channel Saul’s bitter but powerful zeal the way doctors throughout the ages have used the bitter but powerful properties of hyssop. This twiggy-leafy plant is used in medicines to this day, but in Paul’s day it was also used by spiritual leaders to sprinkle both sacrificial blood and holy water during Jewish and Christian cleansing ceremonies. A branch of it was also used to put a wine-soaked sponge within reach of the crucified Christ’s lips when he said “I thirst.”
As Paul testifies via Timothy this Sunday (2 Timothy 4:6-8, 17-18), Christ satisfied this zealot’s thirst for both wisdom and strength when he needed it most to fulfill the mission for which he was chosen. At this point he has already accomplished his part in that mission and is passing it forward. He feels poured out like a libation offering spiritual rejuvenation to others.
“The Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the proclamation might be completed and all the Gentiles might hear it,” he says.
The Christian tree has both Jewish and gentile roots. This distinction divided Peter and Paul for a while when the Jewish Christians Peter led demanded that the gentiles Paul attracted to the faith be justified by Jewish laws (i.e., circumcision). As Paul wisely taught,
“I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.” (Galatians 2:20)
Our faith that Christ died for us gives us the courage Peter and Paul had in common. It helps us realize we’re all branches of the same tree.
By the way, Katharine Hepburn’s answer to Barbara Walters’ tree question was “oak.” Hepburn coveted its strength and feared the ravages of Dutch Elm disease. But as Peter and Paul proved by their courageous lives, the most powerful trees in God’s kingdom are known by their fruit.
–Tom Andel
It is said we are all known by the fruit that we bear, be it abundant or little.
The fruit of our life would be most evident in how well we pursue and follow the master. The bible says we can do nothing apart from God (John 15:5), but do we actually function that way, or do we try to rely on our own limited capacity? I’d say for the most part it is the latter.
Try as we might we seem to neglect or dismiss this important directive of our faith. Thus our fruit is minimized by our own narrow minded limitations. Following Christ intentionally and consistently changes everything. Now and forever!
Amen
As your friend Angelo Petitti teaches, abundant fruit requires care and feeding. Prayer, God’s Word, Christ’s body and blood, and openness to counsel make us strong so we can offer others the same attention.