The Lord Himself was a witness to the hardest labors and sufferings that the great Apostle Paul endured during the many years of his fiery preaching about Him; beforehand, as it were, he was present at beatings, imprisonments, even when stoned almost to death; I was with him at shipwrecks three times, when he spent day and night in the depths of the sea, holding on to a wreck of a ship...

That is why the Omniscient Lord said to the Apostle Ananias: "Go, for he is My chosen vessel... And I will show him how much he must suffer for My name's sake" (Acts 9:1516).

The Lord knew that the time would come when this chosen vessel of His would be honored with the greatest reward for His labors and feats, would be caught up to the third heaven in paradise and would hear there ineffable words that cannot be told to people.

Is all this really not enough to say that from the Son of God Himself the great Paul deserved the title of the chief Apostle?

I could end my sermon here on the day of the great chief Apostles Peter and Paul, but I want to focus your attention on two facts from their great lives.

Is it not amazing that the enemy of Christ, such as Saul was, suddenly transformed into a chosen vessel of grace full to the brim, such as he, the supreme Apostle Paul, became?

I think that it is not difficult to answer this question. The enemy of Christ was the youth Saul, who grew up and was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, the famous rabbi, teacher of the law of Moses.

And young people with still immature minds and scant knowledge of life easily perceive other people's opinions and submit to political leaders, spiritual leaders, and live by their minds, and not by their own.

Saul became an enemy of Christ under the intellectual and moral influence of Rabbi Gamaliel, but the miraculous calling to a new path of life from the Lord Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus made him a great friend of Christ – the Apostle Paul, for this Divine calling had immeasurably greater power than the education and lessons of Gamaliel.

And the second thing to which I would like to draw your attention is the immeasurable goodness and mercy of God, the lightness and mercy of God that were manifested to the great Apostle Peter, who denied his Divine Teacher three times in the court of Pontius Pilate, and the forgetfulness and forgiveness of the malice and hatred of the young Saul towards all who believed in Christ.

May this also be a precious example for us, may we also live in the hope of the forgiveness of our sins, if we love Christ God with all our hearts.

And may the prayers of the Chief Apostles Peter and Paul help us in this and strengthen our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ with His Eternal Father and the Most Holy Spirit.

Amen.

1958