Built on the Foundations of a Rock and Chosen Vessel, Solemnity of SS. Peter and Paul, June 29, 2021

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs, Auriesville, New York
Solemnity of SS. Peter and Paul
June 29, 2021
Acts 12:1-11, Ps 34, 2 Tim 4:6-8.17-18, Mt 16:13-19

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• Today’s great Solemnity of SS. Peter and Paul gives us an opportunity to focus on their callings and missions in the Church and how each of us is called, in our own way, to relate to, and imitate in our own circumstances, those missions.
• St. Peter was called by Jesus himself to be the rock on whom he would build his Church. Jesus did this despite all of Peter’s obvious weaknesses. Peter was one whose spirit was willing but flesh was weak. He put out into the deep at the Lord’s word, but then begged him to depart for he was a sinful man. He generously gave up everything to follow him, but then asked what he would get out of it. He would name Jesus the Messiah and Son of God but then object to Jesus’ fulfilling of his Mission, thinking not as God does but as men. He would swear that even though he should have to die for Jesus he would never betray him and then deny three times that he even knew him. After prayer, Jesus, as we see in today’s Gospel, chose Peter not because he was perfect or made of granite. He did so because Peter would constantly get up after his falls and humbly depend on God. He would be capable of saying, with courage, in response to Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?,” “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”
• St. Paul was called by Jesus despite the fact that he had presided over the execution of St. Stephen, ripped many Christians out of their homes, and zealously gotten the commitment to walk 135 miles north from Jerusalem to Damascus to terrorize the Christians there just as he had through Judah, Samaria and Galilee. Yet when Jesus made himself known to him outside the gates of the Syrian capital, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?,” once Saul recognized that he was persecuting Jesus through persecuting his Church, he immediately changed and used all the gifts God had given him to make, rather than murder, Christians. Jesus said of him that he was a “chosen instrument” to carry his name before Gentiles, Israelites and kings and to suffer much for his name (Acts 9:15-16). And that’s what he did, spending much of the rest of his life crisscrossing the ancient globe to bring Jesus and his gift of salvation to the people for whom Jesus had died and building up that Church which is Jesus’ body at a time of ferocious anti-Christian persecution.
• Saints Peter and Paul were not just Christian heroes who both happened to die in Rome under the emperor Nero. Jesus Christ gave them both a Mission as the Rock on whom he would build his Church, and the Doctor of the Gentiles. Those key functions continue, first in the papacy, where the 266th Peter, Pope Francis, has been called to proclaim Christ as the Messiah and Son of the Living God, to preside in charity over all of the Churches, to be a sign and agent of unity in the Church’s prophetic, priestly and shepherdly mission, and to continue to be the foremost proclaimer and teacher of the faith. Today is a day, therefore, on which the whole Church remembers its roots and prays for Pope Francis as the Living Rock and Living Teacher of the Nations. It’s also a day in which we commit ourselves to the structure of the Church Jesus has established. He himself chose Peter and Paul and the work that God was accomplishing through them didn’t stop on the day of the martyrdom, but continues to this day. To be Catholic is to be related to the Pope and build ourselves on this personal rock Christ chose. To be Catholic is to receive the teaching of the Apostles, like Peter and Paul, and build our life on it, through our taking seriously the gift and fact of apostolic succession. We’re living in an age in which many Catholics are behaving like Protestants, standing in judgment over popes and bishops, desacralizing their offices, essentially setting their own interpretations of the faith as what they will follow. This is not healthy. Peter and Paul were not perfect; in fact, they fought with each other on occasion. But they reverenced each other’s vocations and office and as Catholics so do we.
• But on this feast of SS. Peter and Paul, we need to ponder their example and emulate it in our own circumstances. Like Peter, despite our sinfulness, despite our weak flesh, we’re called to confess Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah and Son of God and to follow him until death. Like Paul, despite our unworthiness or the things we’ve done contrary to the kingdom, we’re called to make up for lost time, to share with others as of the first importance what we have received, and to do all we can to fight the good fight, finish the race and keep the faith. Like both of them, we’re called to become pillars in the Church making it stronger, keeping it more united, through knowing, loving and sharing the truth and through knowing and loving and serving our fellow Catholics.
• St. Peter was present at the first Mass when Jesus totally changed bread and wine into his body and blood and told the apostles, “Do this in memory of me,” ordaining them so that they might indeed be capable of doing so. St. Paul came later to the Banquet, but when he did, he wrote powerfully about the Eucharist in the life of the Church, passing on the treasure, writing, “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.” Each entered into the Eucharist through their own martyrdom, as they gave their body and blood for Christ and for the Church in imitation of Christ’s total self-gift. As we prepare to receive Jesus on their feast day, let us ask through their intercession for the grace to proclaim the Eucharistic Jesus the Messiah and Son of God, to proclaim Christ Crucified and Risen as the Power and Wisdom of God.

The readings for today’s Mass were:

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