Let us remember this, if they dare to harass and insult our Saviour before us, and with bold and angry words let us denounce the enemies of Christ.

Let us learn from the great Apostle to repent of our sins as passionately and persistently as he repented before his death of his grave sin of denying Christ three times.

Let us bow down to the ground to the great Apostle Peter and turn our spiritual gaze to another great chief Apostle, Blessed Paul.

I have already told you more than once about the innumerable sufferings and persecutions that he endured for his preaching about Christ.

Much and for a long time could be said about the great significance for our faith of his fourteen epistles to various churches. I will only say with what great depth he understood the meaning of Christian love as the basis of all the law and all the commandments of Christ.

Listen to what amazing words he says in his famous "hymn of love": "If I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not love, then I am sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. If I have the note 5 of prophecy, and know all the mysteries, and have all knowledge and all faith, so that I have the note 6 and the mountains, and have not love, then I am nothing. And if I give away all my possessions, and give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing" (1 Cor. 13:13).

Not only did the Apostle Paul speak of love like no one else, but he also burned with it like no one else.

The death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, the Cross drenched in the blood of the Savior of the world, shook him to such an immeasurable degree that the whole world lost all interest in him. He felt as if he had been crucified together with Christ and said: "... by the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ... for me the world is crucified, and I for the world" (Gal. 6:14).

Love for the Lord Jesus Christ so completely possessed him that he said: "... let no man burden me, for I bear the wounds of the Lord Jesus upon my body" (Gal. 6:17).

We do not know whether the wounds of the Savior were really depicted on his hands and feet as authentically as those of the great St. Francis of Assisi. But even if he did not have genuine bloody imprints, then we have no doubt that he felt the wounds and wounds of Christ extremely painfully.

Let us also, together with Blessed Paul, deeply realize and feel the horror of the Cross of Christ.

May not a single day of our life pass without remembering the Cross of Christ and without overshadowing ourselves with it. May we never forget that love for God and neighbor "is the fulfillment of the law" (Rom. 13:10).

And then the Cross of Christ will be depicted on our hearts, at least to a small extent, just as it burned with heavenly light on the hearts of the great chief Apostles Peter and Paul.

To our God, Who has raised up before the sinful world these lamps of goodness and truth, great thanksgiving, honor and worship forever and ever.