Zander Price was the fastest kid at my grade school. He won every race on Field Day. To me, his swiftness meant he was the greatest. Zander was the best.

It’s the same with the speediest Apostle on Easter morning. John tells us he “ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first.” (John 20:4) But only after Peter entered did John go in, see the burial cloths, and believe. Here is a symbol of two dimensions of the Church. John, the beloved disciple, represents the contemplative, mystical life: affection, prayer, intimacy. Peter, the rock, represents the Church’s institutional life: steady, authoritative, structured… but slower.

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