BISHOP OF GOZO CALLS FOR COURAGE AND UNITY
By Mario Attard
Bishop Anton Teuma has urged Maltese Catholics to draw fresh courage from Saints Peter and Paul and to live the unity they showed despite their deep differences.
In his homily on Monday at the Basilica of Nadur for the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, the Bishop of Gozo said the memory of these great apostles is nothing less than the memory of Christ himself. “They shed their blood for the Eucharist,” he told the congregation.
Bishop Teuma recalled how early Christians, during the persecution of Valerian in 257 AD, moved the relics of Peter and Paul to the Catacombs of St Sebastian on the Via Appia in Rome to protect them. The site became known as “Memoria Apostolorum”. There, the faithful celebrated the Eucharist on the remains of these “pillars of the Church”, uniting the memory of Christ with the memory of his apostles.
“We too are making this remembrance that Jesus left us and that the apostles, especially Peter and Paul, passed on to us,” the bishop said. For the first Christians, the Eucharist was everything. It still is.
He recounted the story from the Acts of the Apostles of young Eutychus, who fell from a third-floor window in Troas while listening to St Paul preach during the breaking of bread. Paul raised him to life. “That is how important the Eucharist was for the early Christians,” Bishop Teuma noted.
The bishop stressed that St Paul links the Eucharist directly to daily life. In 1 Corinthians, Paul teaches that sharing one bread and one cup makes us one body. “We must live outside what we celebrate inside,” he said. Division after Mass makes no sense.
Bishop Teuma invited the faithful to look at Peter and Paul themselves. One was a simple fisherman from Bethsaida, impulsive and spontaneous. The other was a highly educated Pharisee from Tarsus, a man of reason and argument. They were complete opposites. Yet they worked together, quarrelled, and stayed united because of Christ.
“Peter and Paul were total extremes, yet they managed to work with each other,” he said. “They fought many times, but they remained together. What bound them was a clear purpose: Jesus Christ.”
The bishop ended by calling on priests and laity alike to build living Christian communities. “Peter worked among the Jews, Paul among the Gentiles. We too must build communities where people care for one another and live the Gospel truly.”
He prayed that the feast would be an “injection of courage”, a renewal of baptism and confirmation, and a call to live the “memoria Christi” in daily life through love and forgiveness.