NOTES for Pe1 1:1-12

Today's reading from the Letter of the holy apostle Peter is at once a prayer of praise and a sermon. Because Peter begins his letter with prayer, this prayer becomes communal, for the addressees, reading it, also pray together with the apostle. The apostle Peter glorifies the Lord, who has given us a special inheritance: the inheritance of salvation. The remarkable feature of this inheritance is that all of us can make use of it already on earth, for we all receive the grace of God, and at the same time, although we are free to renounce it, we cannot accidentally lose it or squander it, for it is kept for us in heaven!

The apostle calls us to rejoice. One can, of course, snort and say: "It is easy for you to rejoice if you grieve 'a little'! But I grieve a lot, so I have no time for joy." Yet the sufferings that Peter and all believers endured in those times were clearly no less than ours, for Christians were persecuted almost everywhere, and the living conditions of many of them were far from comfortable. Peter says that we grieve "a little" only in comparison with the joy that awaits us in heaven and has already been given to us here, in communion with the Living Lord. This joy, "inexpressible and full of glory," is greater than any suffering of ours.

Here is the answer to the question of how freedom and grace relate to one another. Clearly, one could discuss this at length in philosophical language and perhaps explain it in learned terms. But the apostle Peter gives a simple answer in simple language: he says that we are kept for salvation “by the power of God through faith.” This means that without our faith the Lord does not act in us, yet our faith alone—without His power—does not act either! Salvation is possible for a human being only through the participation of both God and the human person.

The call of the apostle "to suffer a bit" sounds, at first sight, a little bit strange. Of course, the fact that sufferings are inevitable, Jesus Himself warned His followers, and in the time before the Christian era it was known that the way of righteousness, in general, if it is strewed by something, in any cases, not roses. But the inevitability of suffering is one thing, and joy received from it – is another. The first one is inevitable; we could consider the second as a kind of manifestation of religious masochism confirming the opinion rather widely spread about Christianity, as a religion of suffering. However, Christianity is not at all a religion; it is life with Christ in His Kingdom. And the faithfulness to Christ is the base of this life, without which, it is impossible and inconceivable.

But how to understand, if we are really faithful to Christ, or do we consider as faithfulness our own intellectual conviction, emotional lift and religious exaltation? The best control here, turn out exactly the persecutions and the other trials connected to our faith. And the problem is not in a certain heroic romanticism, either in a desire of martyr's or confessional crown, but rather in the fact that in the moments of trials, generally, in the place of the emotional ascent comes the decline, the religious ecstasy runs out, and even the intellectual conviction turns out often powerless.

And here is, the relationships of the Kingdom remain a reality in any circumstance, if, of course, it is about real relationships, and not imaginary. And that is why faithfulness kept and carried through the trials, is, according to the word of the apostle, more precious than the cleaned gold. For, one can say with certainty of such faithfulness that is the true. Not because the man, who possesses it, withstood everything, but because he belongs to the Kingdom.

The apostle Peter answers a question we often ask: how should we live as Christians? How can we keep the commandments? This answer is simple, even simpler than one can imagine: we must be ready for trials, keep watch, and, above all, set our hope completely on the grace of God! This is what Saint Therese of the Child Jesus later spoke about: infinite trust is the road into the Kingdom that is open to everyone. Having placed all our hope on His grace, we truly can live in His light, but only if we genuinely want this and sincerely open our heart to Him, knowing that He can accomplish everything, even what is impossible for us...