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Just a couple of days ago, we celebrated the earthly birthday of “the greatest man born of woman”, St. John the Baptist. Today we celebrate the heavenly birthday of the greatest pillars of the Church Christ founded, Sts. Peter and Paul.
The Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, celebrated on 29 June since time immemorial, shines as one of the most venerable solemnities of the Roman liturgical calendar. In the 1962 Missale Romanum, this scarlet-vested feast takes precedence over the green vestments of the Time after Pentecost and supplants the 3rd Sunday after Pentecost whenever it falls on a Sunday, as it does in this year 2025. This substitution underscores the importance Rome and the Universal Church have always attached to this commemoration. Saints Peter and Paul are venerated together, even though their vocations and temperaments were strikingly different. In honoring them side by side, the Church testifies to the unity that overcomes diversity and the faith that triumphs over human weakness.
The day of the martyrdom of Sts. Peter and Paul has been venerated from the earliest years of the Roman Church, and from the Roman Church to the wider Church. For example, St. Augustine of Hippo (+430) demonstrates that in North Africa they were following the Roman customs. On 29 June 410, the year in which Alaric the Visigoth sacked Rome, Augustine preached on the “dies natalis… birthday (into Heaven)” of Peter and Paul (s. 295). St. Jerome (+420) held that they were killed on the very same 29th day of June. In De viris illustribus 5, Jerome asserts about Paul: “Et hic ergo quarto decimo anno Neronis eodem die, quo Petrus, Romae pro Christo capite truncatur… And here, therefore in Nero’s fourteenth year on the same day as Peter was beheaded for Christ.” This would have been in A.D. 68. About Peter, Jerome says he also was killed in Nero’s last year, the fourteenth of his reign. However, St. Augustine, in s. 295.7 declared:
Unus dies passionis duobus Apostolis. Sed et illi duo unum erant: quamquam diversis diebus paterentur, unum erant. Praecessit Petrus, secutus est Paulus. … One day for the passion of two apostles. But those two also were as one; although they suffered on different days, they were as one. Peter went first, Paul followed…
In another, earlier sermon for the martyrdom Sts. Peter and Paul perhaps around 400 (s. 299/A.1), the Bishop of Hippo says:
Quantum Ecclesiae traditione percepimus, non uno die passi sunt, et uno die passi sunt. Hodie prior passus est Petrus, hodie posterior passus est Paulus… As far as we have gathered from the tradition of the Church, they did not suffer on one and the same day, and they did suffer on one and the same day. Peter suffered first on this day, Paul suffered afterward on this day…
The main point is that, in the shedding of their Blood for Christ, Peter and Paul, very different men with differing missions, are inextricably bound together in the heart and mind and terrain of the Roman Church. So much so is this true that most theologians have held that the office Christ conferred on Peter as His Vicar and Head of the College of Bishop by the Sea of Galilee is now inextricably bound to the office of the Roman Church’s chief pastor on that very same terrain, in a single office we now call the Pope. It is to be recalled that Peter was the Vicar of Christ before he was “bishop” of anywhere and that he brought the role of Vicar with him in his person when he went to Antioch and later to Rome, which suggests that, at least until he sealed the deal with his blood, the roles of Vicar and of bishop of some local Church were separable. But that’s another netting of fish.
The figures of Peter and Paul are foundational and supporting elements of the Church’s mission and identity. They’ve been likened to pillars that support the New Temple which is Christ’s Church just as the two pillars called Boaz (“In him is strength”) and Jachin (“He has established”) which held up the Temple of Solomon’s portico.
The Epistle from Acts 12, recounts Peter’s miraculous liberation by an angel from Herod’s prison. This text is not only important for its historical content but also for its allegorical application: taking Peter as a figure of the Church herself, whenever she is shackled and imprisoned by hostile powers, she is always delivered in God’s time as we see through history time and again. By the by, this Herod is not “the Great” (+4 BC) who sought to kill the Child Jesus, nor Herod Antipas (+AD 39) who tried Jesus, but rather Herod Agrippa who ruled Judea between 41-44. Acts 12:20-23 says that this Herod would die by divine vengeance for killing James in 44.
We note in Acts 12:3 the time of year this took place: “This was during the days of Unleavened Bread.” The place is Jerusalem. In the same place and same time of year as Our Lord was arrested, imprisoned, and killed, Peter is arrested, imprisoned and sentenced to die. James, brother of John, had just been killed (v. 2). Peter is saved by the intercessory prayer of the Church (v. 5) and the intervention of the angel but, in a sense, he had experienced a moment to conform himself to his bold statement during the Last Supper that, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death!” (Luke 22:33, Matthew 26:35, Mark 14:31). In John 13:36, Jesus told Peter, “Where I am going you cannot follow me now; but you shall follow afterward.” Peter did follow. First, imprisoned in Jerusalem, where it is hard to imagine he didn’t think he was about to die. This is despite what Christ told him on the shore (John 21:18), namely, that “when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go.” We don’t know exactly how old Peter was when he became Christ’s Vicar and then experienced imprisonment in Jerusalem. Nevertheless, Peter’s life was being conformed to Christ’s life, foretelling also the Passion which the Church must at some point experience.
Paul also underwent this confirming conformation. He wrote in 2 Timothy 4, “I am already on the point of being sacrificed, the time of my departure has come.” Before this moment, however, Paul had been rescued from mortal peril after mortal peril for the sake of his mission to the Gentiles. As Peter needed deliverance from himself as man alternating with impetuosity and fear, so Paul needed to be delivered from himself, who as Saul has been such a wicked man.
I think this conformation of Christ’s servants is also subtly underscored when the angel told Peter to dress himself and then go under his own power where he wanted to go: out of jail. Did Peter remember then what Christ told him on the shore? Is this direction from the angel a kind of rebuke and reminder from the Lord for doubting His words about his death in old age? And there is also the somewhat legendary reproval of the fleeing Peter by the Lord on the outskirts of Rome, the “Domine, quo vadis?” incident. Threefold denial of Peter during the Passion near a charcoal fire (John 18:18). Threefold rehabilitation by Christ after the Resurrection, near a charcoal fire (John 21:9). Doubt corrected in prison. Fear healed in the flight Rome and death. Again Peter, a figure of the Church herself, reminds us that even when now and again the Church in her pastors and members seems cowardly, doubtful, wavering in the face of the world, the flesh and the Devil, God intervenes with what she needs to carry out the mission. We see this through history time and again. He permits trials. He raises up saints in due season. They try, prepare, guide.
In a sermon for the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul in 418 or thereabouts, St. Augustine preached about how both Peter and Paul, who at times butted heads, lead the way for us all (s. 297)
Finally, once the rams had passed along that harsh road of death, the sheep followed. The rams of the sheep are the holy apostles. The way of death is harsh, full of thorns; but with Peter and Paul passing along it, these thorns have been worn down by petrine, rocky feet.
To conclude, I’ll circle back to something I mentioned in passing above. In Acts 12 we hear about how Peter was imprisoned. There were four squads of guards (v. 4) and, bounds with chains, he had to sleep between two soldiers with sentries at the door (v. 6). Not a hopeful scenario in human terms but nothing special for an angel. However, between v. 4 and v. 6 we read:
earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church (v. 5).
The Church’s pastors need your earnest prayers. Is there something you could be doing for, perhaps, a particular – let’s say – bishop? One who seems to be under fire, or somewhat out of it? Is there one whom you find especially annoying? It is, firstly, hard to cling to hatred or annoyance toward one for whom you sincerely and assiduously pray and offer penances and acts of reparation. Bishops and priests are high value targets for the Enemy and they need prayers. The Enemy hates them in a relentless and savage way. Bring one down and the whole Church suffers. The whole Church in Peter’s time was small, but they prayed for Peter and he was miraculously rescued. The people who prayed became the cooperating instruments, intermediaries of Christ’s providential action in saving Peter for his mission in Rome.
The Church’s pastors need your earnest prayers. I am mindful of the Seven Sisters Apostolate to which I link HERE. This is a beautiful initiative which could be joined by women. Perhaps it could be imitated in a parallel way by men.
The Church’s pastors need you.