MEDITATION TIPS Solemnity of the Apostles Peter and Paul,
June 29, 2025

“You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.” (Matthew 16:18)

　At the front of the Vatican in Rome (Saint Peter’s Basilica), two grand statues of Peter and Paul stand, each holding their respective symbols—Peter, the keys; and Paul, a scroll and a sword. These two figures are strikingly contrasting. Peter, a fisherman called directly by Jesus as His disciple, displayed a very human personality and served as the leader of the disciples. The Bible refers to Peter as “an uneducated, ordinary man” (Acts 4:13). On the other hand, Paul was a zealous Jew, who transitioned dramatically from persecutor of Christians to a converted apostle, an excellent theologian, and a preacher of the Gospel to Gentiles. Known as the Apostle to the Gentiles, he left many letters that were later recognized as part of the Scriptures.

　Why then, do we celebrate these two great apostles together? Would it not be more appropriate to honor them individually? There is, however, a reason for this. Peter, despite being an “uneducated, ordinary man,” had a compassionate heart and acted on intuition. Paul, in contrast, was a rigorous, talented, and rational person. God endowed humanity with two magnificent capacities: intuition and reason. Likewise, the human brain is divided into two hemispheres—the right brain governing intuition and imagination, and the left brain over-seeing logic and language. We must use both hemispheres to foster the interplay of heart (intuition) and intellect (reason), and cultivate our lives into a rich pasture.

　Hence, we need both the intuition, represented by Peter, and the reason, exemplified by Paul. Relying solely on intuition or exclusively on reason leads to imbalance. However, as science and technology advance, there is a tendency to overvalue reason while diminishing intuition, which is often represented by religion and spirituality. Some extreme adherents of scientism even claim that phenomena unexplained by science do not exist. However, faith itself can be seen as a kind of intuition—perceiving through intuition and expressing through the power of reason. Furthermore, matters such as the existence of God or supernatural events, which cannot be proven experimentally, must also be acknowledged as valid conclusions from science.

　Alexis Carrel, who was awarded the 1912 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, initially held a distrustful attitude toward the Church. Yet, much like Paul’s dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus, Carrel witnessed a miracle while traveling in Lourdes, an experience that completely transformed his life. He remarked, “Prayer is the most powerful energy a human can generate. It is as tangible a force as the gravitational pull of Earth. As a physician, I have witnessed numerous instances where people, after failing all forms of treatment, were healed by the solemn power of prayer.”

　If we acknowledge Newton’s law of universal gravitation, which states that “all objects on Earth are not only drawn to the Earth, all objects in the universe are also drawn to each other,” then we must also acknowledge the law of prayer: “All people are not only drawn to God but also drawn to each other through prayer.”

　This is because prayer is “God’s gravitation.”

 　　　　　(Contributed by Father Yutaka Akabae)