The Solemnity of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Monday, June 29, 2020

From the earliest times, St, Peter and St. Paul were considered by the Christians as the greatest of the Apostles, and revered them on nearly equal terms.  St. Clement, the third bishop of Rome (88-95 A.D.), writes in the fifth chapter of his Letter to the Corinthians: “Through envy and jealousy the greatest and most righteous pillars [of the church] have been persecuted and put to death.  Let us set before our eyes the illustrious Apostles.  Peter, through unrighteous envy, endured not one or two, but numerous labors, and when he had at length suffered martyrdom, departed to the place of glory due to him. Owing to envy, Paul also obtained the reward of patient endurance, after being seven times thrown into captivity, compelled to flee, and stoned.  After preaching both in the east and west, he gained the illustrious reputation due to his faith, having taught righteousness to the whole world, and come to the extreme limit of the west, and suffered martyrdom under the prefects. Thus was he removed from the world, and went into the holy place, having proved himself a striking example of patience.”  Clement would have been writing less than thirty years after Peter and Paul were martyred.

We can know something of these two great followers of the Lord Jesus from the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles.  The latter book, indeed, was written by St. Luke, a friend and fellow missionary with Paul, whom Paul himself names “the most dear physician”.  We can also learn a bit about them from what we find in the works of the early Fathers, just a few words in passing.  Peter was said to have had at least one daughter, and that his wife traveled with him to Rome, where she was arrested and martyred before he was.  His last words to her, as she was being led away, were, “Remember the Lord!”  St. Paul was said to have been bald and short, and to have had large, penetrating eyes.  By his own admission, Paul was not particularly physically prepossessing, but his words were piercing.  In various apocryphal works, Peter and Paul are depicted as having met up in  Rome after various adventures, and to have faced the emperor Nero together in a contest of miracles with Simon Magus.  Peter is shown as the more forceful of the two in these accounts.  

We glorify God for his having given us this fisherman and this tent-maker as the first leaders of the Church, and as examples of how he uses the little ones of this world to confound the greater ones.  May we ever profit from their intercession.

A translation of the Collect prayer from the 1962 Missal:

O God, Who made this day holy by the martyrdom of Your Apostles Peter and Paul, grant Your Church to follow in all things the teaching of those from whom she first received the faith. Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, Who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.