SUNDAY READINGS Matthew’s Gospel chapter 16: >>> Jesus said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter said in reply,“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.”2ND Timothy 4:6-8 >>> I, Paul, am already being poured out like a libation, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith. From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me, which the Lord, the just judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but to all who have longed for his appearance. Take Note: Readings focused on the two apostles.
Peter and Paul are the two pillar apostles of the Church. While they both have their own individual saint days—of Feb. 22nd and January 25th – they are paired for this feast at the end of this Sacred Heart of Jesus month. They became the united pair (that we call “pillars”) who built up the Catholic-Christian faith—and they were both martyred in Rome around 67 a.d. This solemnity marks it.
Let’s compare and contrast Peter and Paul. Peter had helped the Church become built on the fulfilled Messianic ways of Jesus—note: “You are The Christ!,” he exclaimed. Peter’s mission would be for primarily for the Middle East and Israel’s response of faith. As we see in Acts 15, though, Peter would take the apostolic lead in decisions for the worldwide emergent Church. Paul had helped the Jews believe in Jesus too, but he was instrumental in Gentiles coming into the fold. His mission was in a wide expanse of lands and peoples.
The two apostles each did their key part in the Church’s start, even if in different ways. It will reflect how Catholics today may come from different perspectives or calls from Jesus, yet to serve the One Church.
Peter had been trained slowly by Jesus to be his apostle, with a gradual conversion, highlighted by today’s gospel moment in Matthew 16, when he confesses: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” It is a big moment of faith, which he was gradually getting to. Some of us Catholics can relate to this ongoing and deepening conversion method. Peter would have more conversion stages to find. Looking at his background, this Galilean fisherman had certainly been one of those remnant believers living in Israel upon the Coming of The Lord. He was living his religion but upon an adult portion of his journey, he was given a personal call by the super-rabbi Jesus, and he answered it. Peter (first known as Simon) had much help from his brother Andrew in being hopeful and open enough to follow Jesus with him.
Paul has more of a dramatic big conversion of faith, even with a blinded by The Light moment of the Risen Jesus. We have some Catholics today who have had dramatic stories or faith encounters to tell, to turn them to The Lord and turn back to Him and His Church. Paul, first known as Saul, did not know any friends who were followers of Jesus, nor did he think a Messiah could be on the scene at all. He was a serious-minded man of the Jewish law and its religious legalism. He was a great scholar but close-minded and grew up as a mixed Jew-Roman had been working hard against Christianity’s start, but he was brought to join the very Church he had been persecuting. The Master of that Church spoke to him, saying: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’ That got him to turn to come onto our team. He saw the Light. He also saw the direct connection of Jesus and The Church, of which he would write about much.
Yet in the end, though in different manners and places of faith, both Peter and Paul are testifying in Rome of Jesus as The Lord. They both are willing to die for the Faith, for they are already saved in Christ Jesus. In today’s epistle, written to an apostle successor in Timothy, St. Paul says that he sees his life as “nearly finished, and poured out.” In the Acts reading today, Peter says that if God let previously helped him to even get out of jail with angelic help, then certainly God had a resurrection plan of freedom for him to go to Glory. He even said that how he had “the keys to the kingdom of heaven.”
Peter dies on a Cross, crucified upside down. Paul is beheaded. They are heroes. Thus today is a Double Saint-Martyrs Day. Today. June 29. Today also happens to be 70 days since Easter. My homily here is to serve as a review of their greatness as saints, and as models of strength for today’s Church.
We are to take from these two apostles some strength for remaining faithful to God and Jesus and to all the Truths brought for us to live. What else can we gain from Peter and Paul? I’d say there’s a message here of how we need some fearlessness in us—all in an innocent faith in Christ—to be given forth versus the tide of the world trying to dissuade us from our testimony and witness. Peter and Paul can intercede for us in that! Thirdly, we can remind ourselves that Jesus began His Church to be apostolic, and He decided how it would go. We’ve been trying to keep to His plan ever since as the Catholic Church.
Three applications: a/feel strength from their fidelity b/ pray for some of their fearlessness. c/ be reminded how the Church was started by Jesus and His plan from then is to be implemented as He led it.
Next, let’s learn a few things from the churches of these saints….
St. Paul’s Outside the Walls Basilica in Rome gives testament to this thirteenth of apostles, following Matthias, the new twelfth apostle. It’s fitting for his church to be located outside of the Vatican City area—just because of how Paul went out to the areas away from Israel and Jerusalem, leaving James and Peter, then, for the “Holy Land” ministry. Paul was mostly was out in Asia Minor and out on the edges of today’s Europe and the north side of the Mediterranean (or Great) Sea. He put everything into his ministry, which we think he lived as a single man, imitating Jesus’ life, and copying a few of the early apostles’ choices or following the parable Jesus taught in Luke 18, of leaving all for the sake of ministry.
Paul is buried right beneath the altar of Rome’s St. Paul’s Outside the Walls.
In our Archdiocese, we have a parish that is way outside of the Washington area and the Beltway, appropriately, in Damascus of upper Montgomery County—33 miles away from our cathedral in DC. This is St. Paul’s parish. For a city named Damascus, Md.–what else would you name its parish (?) than after the Syrian city of Damascus where Saul of Tarsus was healed and converted to become Paul, and even the apostle Paul. (1 Cor. 15:9-11)
You all know how in Vatican City is located the large Catholic Church of St. Peter the Apostle. It’s the Catholics’ mother church or capital church and has a headquarters connected to it. The pope lives and serves there, along with other Vatican officials. Have you ever had the opportunity to see it in person? Or, maybe, seen a good book or video or program of detail on it?
Pilgrims in St. Peter’s Basilica will see inscribed on the base of the altar cupola the words in today’s gospel verse 18 of Matthew 16— “Tu es Petrus …” (“Thou art Peter” or “You are Peter …”) as put into English. Peter also translates to Rock, and it’s interesting that the altar canopy* hangs directly over St. Peter’s bones of rest in the catacombs right below the altar. *covering or bauldichino
Local Catholics can walk into our own St. Peter’s Capitol Hill parish and see in the nave the inscription. “Tu es Petrus …” in Latin. But go further in to the church sanctuary, and you see words inscribed prominently of the words of Peter that he confesses to Jesus, that becomes such a pinnacle gospel moment: Peter says:“Tu es Christus Filius Dei Vivi” (“You are the Christ, Son of the living God”). This church is put on property down second street from the U.S. Capitol building, which in trivial knowledge was all once owned by the Carroll family. Yes, the Carrolls gave the land atop Capitol Hill for that U.S. Capitol building.
To conclude today: The Peter and Paul Day in the Church is now the day in 2025 and of recent times when the pope gives the pallia to his new archbishops in the world. They come for it to St. Peter’s. Today on this solemnity, there are 8 or 9 USA Archbishops who are new to their US city-Archdioceses, including our own Cardinal Archbishop Robert McIlroy to DC, who will stand before the pope and have the symbol of the shepherd put over their shoulders. Each pallium symbolizes the good shepherd who carries the sheep, seen in a woolen band that archbishops wear over their chasubles when celebrating Mass in their own “provinces.” The new American Archbishops (including the one in the American territory of Guam will personally enjoy having this ritual done by the American priest named pope, in Leo 14.
Post-tidbit Is Peter Paul Candy Company named for the saints? Answer: No. Peter Paul Candy was founded in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1919 by six Armenian immigrants led by Peter Paul Halajian, with a manufacturing plant in Naugatuck, Connecticut. It did quite well through the years, featuring the Mounds and Almond Joy bars, but was bought out to eventual Hershey Co. But if you want a made up answer instead—the Mounds bar is made to be the St. Peter’s bar, and when you feel like a nut and St. Paul, have the Almond Joy bar.