Bishop Cozzens: Like St. Peter, Christians can learn from our weaknesses

What can be learned from St. Peter’s betrayal of Jesus, and of Jesus’ forgiveness?

That was the focus of Bishop Andrew Cozzens’ conference talk April 8, the final talk of the virtual Holy Week retreat hosted by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Speaking via livestreamed video at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul, he recounted the Gospels’ narrative: After Jesus’ arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter denied knowing him three times, just as Jesus had foretold at the Last Supper. Then, after the Resurrection, Jesus forgave him by asking him three times, “Peter, do you love me?”

“It’s such an important moment for us to meditate on, because we know in our humanity, that we often find ourselves in the place of Peter,” he said of Peter’s denial. “That we know that moment where we choose ourselves over the Lord.”

Titled “Learning from our Betrayals,” the talk was presented on “Spy Wednesday,” when the Church traditionally recalls Judas’ betrayal of Jesus to the Sanhedrin.

Speaking with the Eucharist exposed in a monstrance next to him on the Cathedral’s altar, Bishop Cozzens noted that Peter’s denial was recorded in all four Gospel accounts.

“It seems that wherever the Gospels were written in the early Roman empire or in the Christian world, the one thing that everybody knew about their leader was that in the key moment, he had betrayed the Lord. When it really counted, he failed,” the auxiliary bishop said. “And yet, this failure was key to his success.”

Accompanying the talk was a projection of the 17^th century painting “The Denial of St. Peter” by Gerrit van Honthorst, part of the collection of Minneapolis Institute of Art. Painted with dramatic contrasts between light and dark, the work highlights St. Peter’s accuser, who is holding a candle, and casts St. Peter’s face in shadows.

“It puts into the picture for us the terror that’s on Peter’s face, and it makes us wonder, what was actually going on in his heart in that all-important moment, when St. Peter denied the Lord, when he chose to protect himself in fear,” Bishop Cozzens said.

The Gospels show Peter as someone who struggled with weakness and failure, Bishop Cozzens said. After the miraculous catch of fish following Peter first meeting Jesus, Peter says to Jesus, “Leave me Lord, for I am a sinful man.”

“In other words, he falls into that temptation that we feel in our weakness, that we actually want to be far from the Lord,” Bishop Cozzens said. “Thank God, the Lord doesn’t leave him, but actually invites him to follow.”

But in Matthew 16, when Jesus asks his apostles who they say he is, it’s Peter who says that he’s the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Jesus commends the answer, says it was revealed by God, and then tells Peter that he will give him the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

But then, in the next passage, after Jesus begins to talk about needing to go to Jerusalem, suffer and die, and rise after three days, Peter rebuked him. Jesus told him, “Get behind me, Satan, you are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

“As soon as the Lord begins to speak about his cross, about his suffering and death, Peter can’t take it: ‘God forbid, Lord,’” Bishop Cozzens said. Pointing also to the Last Supper, where Peter questioned whether Jesus should wash his feet, too, Bishop Cozzens noted that Peter struggles to deal with the Lord’s weakness, in addition to his own.

At the Last Supper, Peter tells Jesus that he is willing to be imprisoned and die with Jesus, but Christ predicts that Peter will deny knowing him three times before the following morning, when the rooster crows.

“There’s something remarkable here when you think about it,” Bishop Cozzens said. “The Lord tells St. Peter that the devil is going to tempt him to commit a mortal sin, and our Lord says, ‘I’m going to let him do it. And I know you’re going to fall into this mortal sin.’ Why would the Lord allow that, unless it was that Peter had to learn through experiencing his own weakness and failure.”

Bishop Cozzens said that, likewise, it’s important for all Christians to grow in understanding of their own weaknesses and failure. Regular confession, he said, is an important tool for that. The more one goes to confession, the more one grows to see his or her sinfulness. He compared the self-knowledge it gives about one’s soul to the difference between turning on a small lightbulb in a dark attic and noticing a few things are awry and, to illuminating the entire room and seeing the dust, cobwebs and disorder.

“Even those of us who want to follow Jesus and try to follow Jesus, if we’re honest with ourselves, despite our good desires, we fail,” he said. “We deny the truth and goodness and the beauty of the Lord with our actions. It’s one of the great mysteries of Christianity, why are Christians — even sincere Christians — still so week? Why do we so often fail? Why is it so hard to live the Cristian life well? Why is it so hard not to sin? So hard, that even the saints go to confession regularly?”

This is especially illuminated in Lent, Bishop Cozzens said, because even though it’s just six weeks, people struggle to maintain their Lenten disciplines. Quoting the late Father Mark Dosh, a longtime pastor of St. John the Baptist in Excelsior, “Failure is part of learning to live the Christian life, and Lent is supposed to remind us that we fail.”

Jesus allows that weakness and failure is part of people’s spiritual journeys, Bishop Cozzens said, “so that through that weakness and failure, we can come to discover the truth about God, as well as the truth about ourselves.”

“So it’s very important that in the Christian life that we see our weakness and our failure with eyes of faith,” he said. “If we do this, it can actually be a gift, as it was in the life of St. Peter.”

The talk was the fourth and final talk in the archdiocese’s virtual Holy Week retreat. It with began Palm Sunday Mass April 5 and will conclude with Easter Sunday Mass April 12. The retreat included three other evening talks, given by Archbishop Bernard Hebda, Father Peter Williams, pastor of St. Ambrose in Woodbury, and Father John Ubel, rector of the Cathedral of St. Paul. The retreat has also included daily 9 a.m. morning prayer and lectio divina and will include the Triduum liturgies.

The virtual retreat schedule is available at archspm.org/holyweek, and the talks are archived at the archdiocese’s Facebook page.

At the beginning of his talk, Bishop Cozzens acknowledged the unique situation of this year’s Holy Week, with public Masses suspended and the state of Minnesota under stay-at-home orders to slow the spread of COVID-19. Bishop Cozzens’ talk was viewed by more than 3,500 people.

“It’s a great sadness that we can’t be here together, but I’m grateful we can be here to meditate, even virtually,” he said.