Bossuet on St. Peter

Friedsam Collection,
Metropolitan Museum

Peter’s "love, put to the greatest test that man can undergo, triumphed over agonies and death itself.  Neither attachment to life, nor the shame of an ignominious execution [(supplice)], nor the agony of a long and cruel martyrdom can temper his ardour.  What am I saying?  [That] they serve only to animate him more and more, by the desire by which his heart is possessed, to sacrifice himself for him who loved him so much.  And far from finding anything too painful in the bitterness of his sufferings, he yet wishes to add to them on his own initiative a circumstance no less severe, in order to express more vividly his profound sense of abasement before his Master, in order to make to him, as it were, a final public apology [(une dernière amende honorable)] for his past infidelities, and to adore him in the most perfect prostration [(anéantissement)] of himself.  So true is it that the love of St. Peter is at present as strong as death that his zeal is as obdurate [(inflexible)] as hell, that his eyes [(lampes)] are eyes of fire, that that [(sa)] flame is wholly divine; and that, if he failed formerly the weakest test, henceforth the great waters will not be able to extinguish him, and the large rivers of all temptations combined will have no power to smother him.
     "What [a] contrast, my brethren, between us and this great apostle!  Were Jesus Christ to ask us, as him, 'Do you love me?' ('Amas me?'), who will respond, 'Lord, I love you?'  All will say it, but take care.  Hypocrisy says it, but it is a feint.  Presumption says it, but it is an illusion.  The love of the world says it, but it is an interest that loves Jesus Christ only in order to be happy on earth.  Who are those who will say so truly?  Those who love him to the point of crucifixion [(jusque sur la croix)], those who are ready to lose everything in order to remain faithful to him, to suffer everything in order to be consumed in his love."

     Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, "Panégyrique de l'apotre saint Pierre" (c. 29 June 1661), Bossuet:  oraisons funèbres panégyriques, ed. L’Abbé Bernard Velat, Biblioteque de la Pleiade 33 (Paris:  Librairie Gallimard, 1950), 569-570 (561-572), translation mine.