Saints never have a bad day, never do anything wrong, they are “goody two-shoes.” At least that is what I thought growing up and why I had such a difficult time identifying with saints. They were not like me! When we dig deeper, however, we see that saints are a lot more human than we may think.
In the Gospels Peter and the other disciples come across as very human. They follow Jesus and hear all His teachings and see all His healings and exorcisms but often they fail to understand. Jesus even calls them people of “little faith.”
Saint Peter in today’s Gospel is both the hero and the goat. He confesses to Jesus: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Peter knows that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, because God has revealed this to him: “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.” Jesus gives Simon a nickname, Rock (Kephas in Aramaic, Petros in Greek).
Jesus has a further revelation about Himself: He is to be a suffering or crucified Messiah. Here Peter’s faith gets “rocky.” He rebukes Jesus for saying such a thing and Jesus in turn rebukes Simon and calls him not Rock but Satan: “Get behind me, Satan…You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” Peter will eventually deny that he even knows Jesus. So, Simon the Rock, who confesses that Jesus is the Messiah is also Simon who denies that he even knows Jesus. Yet Peter is a saint because he receives the Lord’s forgiveness and even dies a martyr’s death in Rome.
I find the story of Peter and the other disciples very comforting since they are very human like me. Some days their faith is strong but other times they have little faith. Jesus continues to welcome them and us, to teach us and to show us God’s Will and God’s Way. To be a saint you do not have to be perfect; you just need to try to know and do God’s Will each day.