Simon bar Jonah and Saul of Tarsus, better known to us as Saints Peter and Paul, are remembered together in the sacred liturgy today because they were chosen by the Lord Jesus to be instruments of his grace for the spread of the Gospel and the building up of the Church.
And these two men, so different from each other in life, are remembered as martyrs at the altar in one single feast because of their unity in Christ and their crucial importance in planting the Church both in the City of Rome and throughout the world. But today is not their only place in the liturgical calendar.
January 25th is the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, and February 22nd is the Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter. These two commemorations speak of the necessity of radical conversion and supernatural faith in the Christian life and testify to the continuing presence in the Church of Christ, the Eternal Word and Divine Teacher, who speaks through the apostolic office exercised by the College of Bishops, always together with and under its head, the Bishop of Rome.
Then on November 18th each year the Church rejoices in the dedication of the great Basilicas of Peter and Paul built in Rome over the graves of these two Apostles, both of whom gave their lives in witness to the saving truth that Jesus Christ is Lord. The Basilica of Saint Peter stands on the Vatican Hill near the spot where Peter was crucified, and the Basilica of Saint Paul stands just outside the ancient walls of Rome near the place where Paul was beheaded.
All four of these liturgical celebrations point us to the profiles of authentic discipleship and effective leadership in the Church and show how a life ennobled by liberating grace and lived for the praise of God is crowned with glory for the saints by him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
One way to appreciate the divine mysteries of salvation which are embodied by the saints is to contemplate the texts of the sacred liturgy in which we give thanks for their witness and ask for their intercession. For example, at the November feast of the dedication of the two basilicas, the entrance antiphon is taken from Psalm 45, and speaking to the Lord about Peter and Paul that text says: “You will make them princes over all the earth; they will remember your name through all generations. Thus the peoples will praise you forever, from age to age.”
And then in the Collect for that Mass we pray: “Defend your Church, O Lord, by the protection of the holy Apostles, that as she received from them the beginnings of her knowledge of things divine, so through them she may receive, even to the ends of the world, an increase in heavenly grace.” In these prayers we see how the saints stand as champions of truth and love and show us that the way of the Lord Jesus is the gracious path of wisdom, beauty, and life.
Then each January on the Feast of Saint Paul’s Conversion, the entrance antiphon is taken from Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy. Speaking of judgment and vindication in and by Christ, we pray in Paul’s words: “I know the one in whom I have believed, and I am sure that he, the just judge, the mighty, will keep safe what is my due until that day.”
And in the Collect for that Mass, the Church cries out: “O God, who taught the whole world through the preaching of the blessed Apostle Paul, draw us, we pray, nearer to you through the example of him whose conversion we celebrate today, and so make us witnesses to your truth in the world.”
Meanwhile, in February on the Feast of the Chair of Peter, the entrance antiphon is taken from Saint Luke’s account of the words spoken by the Risen Christ on the shore of the Sea of Galilee about the task assigned to the pastor of the universal Church. “The Lord says to Simon Peter: I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail, and once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
And finally in the Collect for that Mass, we acknowledge the powerful witness of Simon’s life-changing trust in the Lord Jesus Christ: “Grant, we pray, almighty God, that no temptation may disturb us, for you have set us fast on the rock of the Apostle Peter’s confession of faith.”
Each one of these texts brings into bright relief a different facet of the same jewel, what Saint Paul calls “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” which is “the righteousness from God that depends on faith.” (Philippians 3:8, 9) And today we give thanks for these two princes of the Apostles and their enduring place in the Church as witnesses and intercessors who teach us that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the Son of the living God, the Savior of the world.
This Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul has been kept on June 29th for seventeen hundred years, and this feast is so rich a source of Christian piety that there are two separate sets of Mass prayers: one set for the vigil on the night before the feast and another for the main celebration.
The entrance antiphon for the Vigil rejoices that: “Peter the Apostle, and Paul the teacher of the Gentiles, these have taught us your law, O God.” And as this Mass began today we sang “These are the ones who, living in the flesh, planted the Church with their blood; they drank the chalice of the Lord, and became the friends of God.” They became the friends of God.
And because of the unique place of Peter and Paul in the eternal plan of salvation, the Church asks in the Collect for the Vigil of this day: “Grant, we pray, O Lord our God, that we may be sustained by the intercession of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, that, as through them you gave your Church the foundations of her heavenly office, so through them you may help her to eternal salvation.”
And that, friends, is what the Church is for: eternal salvation. Eternal life. Eternal glory. The Church leads us to eternal life as friends of God, and that is a work of grace which is possible only by our being disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ who shares our humanity so that we can share his divinity through the grace of adoption which comes through the obedience of faith.
A popular meme of recent vintage asks how much time the average man spends each day thinking about the Roman Empire. That question, of course, is a jest, but the joke is funny because it points to the enduring hold on our imagination of a political structure that passed into history over 1,500 years ago.
But even though the Roman Empire turned to dust centuries ago, the Holy Roman Church planted by Saints Peter and Paul endures to this day as the head and mother of all the Churches. The Successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome, governs a universal Church which preaches and lives the Gospel in every nation on earth, and the words of Saint Paul are read by two billion Christians scattered around the world. Moreover, many of the outward forms of Western Christianity were borrowed by the Church from the Empire, even as they were put to entirely different uses and for a radically different purpose.
For example, Roman tunics and togas gave shape to many of the vestments used in the sacred liturgy. Roman territorial divisions of dioceses and provinces were adopted by the Church to organize her life around the world. Roman law helped give birth to ecclesiastical law for the administration of justice in the Church. Roman architecture was put to very good use to provide noble spaces for Christian worship. And of course the Roman language, Latin, remains the foundation of prayer, theology, liturgy, and law in the Western Church.
So, how much time do we spend thinking about the Roman Empire? Quite a bit actually, if we enlarge the question to include the life of the Church which took shape in the Eternal City during the first centuries of Christian faith and life.
And that incorporation of Roman forms into the life of the Church happened not randomly but providentially. By the guidance of divine Providence, Simon bar Jonah and Saul of Tarsus prayed, taught, and died in the capital of the ancient Mediterranean, giving everything they had to bear witness to the entire world that Jesus Christ is Lord and that in him alone does the whole human race find salvation. And from Rome, as also from Jerusalem, the mission to the nations was organized for the building up of the Church, the Body of Christ.
Friends, all earthly kingdoms pass away, as the Roman Empire discovered and as even the American Republic will find. But the Kingdom of Heaven endures for ever, and the saints bear witness to that eternal and universal dominion of justice, love, and peace. And so today as we celebrate the princes of the Apostles, the Church lifts her voice to the Throne of Grace in the Collect of this Mass, asking:
O God, who on the Solemnity of the Apostles Peter and Paul give us the noble and holy joy of this day, grant, we pray, that your Church may in all things follow the teaching of those through whom she received the beginnings of right religion. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
This is the text of my homily for 29 June 2025, the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul.
Fr Jay Scott Newman