Weekly Reflection 020506AD

The Preacher’s Wife

Several preachers have made comments about Jesus’ healing of St Peter’s mother-in-law. One preacher imagined the son-in-law’s chagrin as he witnessed the miracle. He thought, “Jesus, did You have to be that good?”

Some conjectured that since Peter’s wife was not mentioned in the Gospel, that St Peter must have been a widower who assumed responsibility for his mother-in-law after his wife’s demise. There is another answer.

In the ninth chapter of 1 Cor, whence our second reading is excerpted today, St Paul spoke of the personal sacrifice and lack of presumption on his own part to make sure that the Gospel was proclaimed to as many as possible.

He spoke of the fact that other Apostles, as well as the family of the Lord (Jesus) as well as Cephas (St Peter) traveled with their wives (!!!!!!) as they proclaimed the Gospel. St Paul chose another methodology.

However, he tells us that St Peter’s wife traveled with the Prince of the Apostles (the first Pope) on his missionary journeys as last as the year 56 AD, (approximately when 1 Cor) was written. How come we never hear that reading in our lectionary?

In addition, there was a legend that St Peter’s wife also died as a martyr as well. There was also another legend that their daughter, St Petronilla, hosted a house church in Rome.

Clearly, we can only speculate. However, since St Peter’s wife was still on the scene 25 years after the death and Resurrection of the Lord, it is safe to assume that she too were a believer in Jesus. Did she meet Jesus in the haling of her mother? Did she experience the Christ Quantum through her husband?

This week, the world mourns the death of Coretta Scott King, an amazing woman, a talented musician, she married Rev Martin Luther King and moved to Montgomery, Alabama, just before Rosa Parks sat down and began the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

In her own childhood, Coretta Scott had to walk to school five miles each way, each day, while, twice a day, a school bus of white children going to a school nearer than hers passed her by. Yet, she did not feel the hatred or anger that some many others would because of the injustice. The Christ Quantum was operating there already.

After Rev King came into prominence, she preferred to remain in the background to raise their four children. Like St Peter, like all of us, Rev King was a sinner, as his enemies were quick to point out. Yet, she forgave him. She recalled the petition in the Lord’s Prayer. She forgave him.

After his assassination in Memphis, in April, 1968, Mrs King assumed his mantle. She became the symbolic stately figure who continued the call to non-violent efforts at social and economic change, characteristic of her husband, and Gandhi and Jesus. Whatever the story was about St. Peter and his wife twenty-five years after the death and Resurrection of the Lord, we know that Coretta Scott King caught the Gospel of Jesus as well and she proclaimed with class and dignity for many years. She said, “Hatred is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.” She had to have met Jesus in her journey. Let us reflect on her legacy. May she rest in the peace of Christ. 020506AD jfq