From the Pulpit: What We Can Learn from St. Peter and St. Paul

Our patron saints Peter and Paul have a lot still to teach us about forgiveness, love, service and truth, says Dean Randy Hollerith.

Most people know us as Washington National Cathedral, but in fact our official name is the Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in the City and Diocese of Washington. That’s a mouthful, and you can probably see why usually we’re just the National Cathedral.

But both Peter and Paul have lessons for us here in 2025. As the Cathedral celebrated Peter and Paul’s feast day, we read from the Gospel account of Jesus’ reconciliation with Peter, where he asks three times if Peter loves him, once for every time Peter denied him.

Peter, the one who denied Jesus is not only forgiven, but he is commissioned. Jesus doesn’t say to Peter that he can’t trust him anymore since he has denied him. No. The grace that Jesus offers Peter, the forgiveness he offers. It restores. It renews. It sends Peter out to carry on Jesus’ work. And it’s a grace offered not just to Peter, but to each of us as well, because all of us have had our moments of fear and failure.

And then, turning to what is likely the last letter Paul wrote before his execution, Dean Hollerith echoed Paul’s call for faithfulness, no matter what is going on in the culture around us:

When the truth often gets buried beneath the noise, we are bombarded with misinformation and spin with ideologies that offer easy answers and ask little in return. It is tempting in such a world to go silent. But Paul’s instructions are clear. Don’t retreat, don’t give up. Be persistent in love, in truth, in patience, in hope. Peter knew what it was to fail. But when Jesus restored him, Peter didn’t just go back to fishing. He became the rock upon which the church was built.

Paul too knew what it meant to get it wrong. He persecuted the church, arresting and stoning the followers of Jesus. But Christ met him on the road to Damascus, turned him around and gave him a new purpose to proclaim the gospel for the very people. He once oppressed. These two men, deeply human, deeply flawed, became the great apostles of the faith. Not because they were righteous, but because they were willing, willing to love, willing to serve, willing to speak the truth, and to follow Jesus wherever he led.