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St. Catherine of Siena speaks explicitly of the second conversion
of the Apostles in the 63rd chapter of her Dialogue.
Their first conversion had taken place when Jesus called them,
with the words:
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'I will make you fishers of men.'
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They followed
our Lord, listened with admiration to His teaching, saw His
miracles and took part in His ministry. Three of them saw Him
transfigured on Thabor. All were present at the institution of the
Eucharist, were ordained priests and received Holy Communion. But
when the hour of the Passion arrived, an hour which Jesus had so
often foretold, the Apostles abandoned their Master Even Peter,
though he loved his Master devotedly; went so far as to deny Him
thrice. Our Lord had told Peter after the Supper, in words that
recall the prologue of the Book of Job.
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'Simon, Simon, behold
Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But
I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not; and thou being
once converted confirm thy brethren.'
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To which Peter replied:
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'Lord, I am ready to go with thee both into prison and to death.'
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But Jesus warned him:
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'I say to thee, Peter, the cock shall not
crow this day till thou thrice deniest that thou knowest me.' [59]
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And, in fact, Peter fell; he denied his Master, swearing that he
did not know Him.
When did his second conversion begin? Immediately after his triple
denial, as we are told in the Gospel of St. Luke [60]
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'Immediately, as he was yet speaking, the cock crew. And the Lord
turning, looked on Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the
Lord, as he had said: Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me
thrice. And Peter going out, wept bitterly.'
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Under the glance of
Jesus and the grace which accompanied it, Peter's repentance must
have been deep indeed and must have been the beginning of a new
life for him
In connection with this second conversion of St. Peter it is well
to recall the words of St. Thomas: [61]
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'Even after a grave sin,
if the soul has a sorrow which is truly fervent and proportionate
to the degree of grace which it has lost, it will recover this
same degree of grace; grace may even revive in the soul in a
higher degree, if the contrition is still more fervent. Thus the
soul has not to begin again completely from the beginning, but it
continues from the point which it had reached at the moment of the
fall.'
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In the same way, the climber who falls when he has reached
half-way up the mountain-side, rises immediately and continues his
ascent from the point at which he has fallen. [62]
Everything leads us to suppose that Peter's repentance was so
fervent that he not only recovered the degree of grace which he
possessed before, but was raised to a higher degree of
supernatural life. Our Lord had allowed him to fall in this way in
order to cure him of his presumption, so that he might be more
humble and place his confidence in God and not in himself.
St. Catherine writes in her Dialogue :[63]
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'Peter... after the sin
of denying My Son, began to weep. Yet his lamentations were
imperfect, and remained so until after the forty days, that is
until after the Ascension. (They remained imperfect in spite of
the appearances of our Lord.) But when my Truth returned to me, in
His humanity, Peter and the others concealed themselves in the
house, awaiting the coming of the Holy Spirit which my Truth had
promised them. They remained barred in through fear, because the
soul always fears until it arrives at true love. '
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It was only at
Pentecost that they were truly transformed.
Yet even before the end of the Passion of Christ there was clearly
a second conversion in Peter and the other Apostles, a conversion
which was consolidated during the days that followed. After His
resurrection our Lord appeared to them several times, enlightening
them, as He did when He taught the disciples of Emmaus the
understanding of the Scriptures; and in particular, after the
miraculous draught of fishes, He made Peter compensate for his
threefold denial by a threefold act of love.
He says to him,
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'lovest thou me more than these? He saith to him:
Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He saith to him: Feed my
lambs. He saith to him again: Simon, son of John, lovest thou me.
He saith to him: Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He
saith to him: Feed my lambs. He said to him the third time: Simon,
son of John, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said to
him the third time: Lovest thou me? And he said to him: Lord, thou
knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee. He said to him:
Feed my sheep.'
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And then He foretold in veiled terms the martyrdom
that Peter would undergo:
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'When thou wast younger thou didst gird
thyself and didst walk where thou wouldst. But when thou shalt be
old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands and another shall gird
thee and lead thee whither thou wouldst not.' [64]
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The threefold act of love made reparation for the threefold
denial. It was a consolidation of the second conversion, a measure
of confirmation in grace before the transformation of Pentecost.
For St. John, too, there had been something special just before
the death of Christ. John, like the other Apostles, had abandoned
his Master when Judas arrived with his band of armed men; but by
an invisible and powerful grace Jesus drew the beloved disciple to
the foot of the cross, and the second conversion of St. John took
place when he heard the seven last words of the dying Saviour.
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