It’s the feast day of the Transfiguration! So, let’s get through the second letter of the Apostle Saint Peter, sent much later in his ministry as bishop of Rome, for he hints at his upcoming death. The Apostle here demonstrates a high theology of grace, the benefit on the Church of her embracing the God-Man, whose humanity is the channel for all of us of the immense bounty of God’s grace, which manifests in us a life of virtue:
“See how all the gifts that make for life and holiness in us belong to His divine power; come to us through fuller knowledge of Him, whose own glory and sovereignty have drawn us to Himself! Through Him God has bestowed on us high and treasured promises; you are to share the divine nature, with the world’s corruption, the world’s passions, left behind. And you too have to contribute every effort on your own part, crowning your faith with virtue, and virtue with enlightenment, and enlightenment with continence, and continence with endurance, and endurance with holiness, and holiness with brotherly love, and brotherly love with charity.”
II Peter, 1: 3-7
The graces we receive and the virtues they produce in turn enable us to grow in our knowledge of Christ and of God. The first part of the letter is therefore a rousing call to the life of virtue. Very touching here, as the Apostle speaks of his life now coming to an end, is his memory of the glory of Christ, that he and the two sons of Zebedee had witnessed on the mountain at the Transfiguration. This is the voice of the Apostles as witnesses, when they tell us what they saw and heard and that we cannot see and hear ourselves.
“We were not crediting fables of man’s invention, when we preached to you about the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, and about His coming; we had been eye-witnesses of His exaltation. Such honour, such glory was bestowed on Him by God the Father, that a voice came to Him out of the splendour which dazzles human eyes; ‘This,’ it said, ‘is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased; to Him, then, listen.’ We, His companions on the holy mountain, heard that voice coming from heaven, and now the word of the prophets gives us more confidence than ever. It is with good reason that you are paying so much attention to that word; it will go on shining, like a lamp in some darkened room, until the dawn breaks, and the day-star rises in your hearts.”
II Peter, 1: 16-19
Yes, indeed, the Apostolic account of the Transfiguration is one of the most memorable accounts in the Gospels. Following this claim of true Apostolic witness, the Apostle reminds us that there exists false witness as well, men who claim to know more about Christ than His own Apostles. We’re all too familiar with people today who claim to know better than Holy Church what Christ would think about this, that and the other. Thus, the Apostle says:
“So, among you, there will be false teachers, covertly introducing pernicious ways of thought, and denying the Master who redeemed them, to their own speedy undoing. Many will embrace their wanton creeds, and bring the way of truth into disrepute, trading on your credulity with lying stories for their own ends. Long since, the warrant for their doom is in full vigour; destruction is on the watch for them. God did not spare the angels who fell into sin; he thrust them down to hell, chained them there in the abyss, to await their sentence in torment.”
II Peter, 2: 1-4
God allows even His angels to rebel against Him and their punishment is instantaneous. What then of the men who dare the same type of rebellion? Or try to justify sinful lifestyles, while sneering at the teaching of the Church, which they do not understand.
“Such men, like dumb creatures that are born to be trapped and destroyed, sneer at what they cannot understand, and will soon perish in their own corruption; they will have the reward their wickedness has deserved. To live in luxury while the day lasts is all their pleasure; what a stain they are, what a disfigurement, when they revel in the luxury of their own banquets, as they fare sumptuously at your side! Their eyes feast on adultery, insatiable of sin; and they know how to win wavering souls to their purpose, so skilled is all their accursed brood at gaining its own ends.“
II Peter, 2: 12-14
The Apostle is speaking here not generally about worldly men, but particularly about Christians who, having been baptised, have fallen back upon their old lives. Here’s some language that we would be less likely than Saint Peter to use of Catholics who have fallen away from the Faith:
“That they should have been rescued, by acknowledging our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, from the world’s pollution, and then been entangled and overpowered by it a second time, means that their last state is worse than the first. Better for them, never to have found their way to justification, than to have found it, and then turned their backs on the holy law once handed down to them. What has happened to them proves the truth of the proverb, The dog is back at his own vomit again. Wash the sow, and you find her wallowing in the mire.”
II Peter, 2: 20-22
The use of the words ‘their last sate is worse than the first’ takes us back to the horrifying picture Christ Himself in the gospels drew of the exorcised soul that was re-inhabited by the devil that had once possessed it, but this time he has brought some of his fellows.
“‘The unclean spirit, which has possessed a man and then goes out of him, walks about the desert looking for a resting-place, and finds none; and it says, I will go back to my own dwelling, from which I came out. And it comes back, to find that dwelling empty, and swept out, and neatly set in order. Thereupon, it goes away, and brings in seven other spirits more wicked than itself to bear it company, and together they enter in and settle down there; so that the last state of that man is worse than the first.‘”
Gospel of S. Matthew, 12: 43-45
At the end, the Apostle deals with the accusation that the Church does not know the exact moment of the return of Christ, and the associated mockery. He states that time means nothing to God, and suggests perhaps that the question of when and how should not concern us as much as should the certainty of the arrival of that dreadful Day of the Lord and the perfection that we should struggle to acquire in the waiting.
“But one thing, beloved, you must keep in mind, that with the Lord a day counts as a thousand years, and a thousand years count as a day. The Lord is not being dilatory over His promise, as some think; He is only giving you more time, because His will is that all of you should attain repentance, not that some should be lost. But the day of the Lord is coming, and when it comes, it will be upon you like a thief. The heavens will vanish in a whirlwind, the elements will be scorched up and dissolve, earth, and all earth’s achievements, will burn away. All so transitory; and what men you ought to be! How unworldly in your life, how reverent towards God, as you wait, and wait eagerly, for the day of the Lord to come, for the heavens to shrivel up in fire, and the elements to melt in its heat!“
II Peter, 3: 8-12
And that is a good point to end. The letter is a call to virtue and to adherence to the Church, and so to work towards acquiring the promises made to her by Christ.
May the holy Apostle S. Peter pray for us.
Catholic Louth and Mablethorpe 