Saints Peter and Paul

Apostles and Martyrs, Pillars of the Church
(died c. 64–68)

The Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, celebrated on June 29th, is one of the most ancient feasts of the Christian calendar and one of the most important in the entire liturgical year. These two great Apostles, so different in temperament and background, together constitute the pillars upon which the visible Church of Christ rests, and their joint feast celebrates the double foundation of the Roman Church in the blood of martyrdom.

Simon Peter was a fisherman of Galilee, impetuous, generous, and deeply loyal, the first among the Twelve whom Jesus gathered around Himself. It was to Peter that Christ gave the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and the commission to feed His sheep and lambs. Peter's faith, though it faltered at the moment of the Passion, was restored by the Risen Lord on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and thereafter Peter led the early Church with an authority that all recognised. He presided at the Council of Jerusalem, he preached to the crowds on Pentecost, and he was the first to open the door of faith to the Gentiles when he baptised the centurion Cornelius.

Paul, by contrast, was a Pharisee of Tarsus, a man of rigorous religious education and passionate conviction, who had been among the most violent persecutors of the Church. His conversion on the road to Damascus was one of the most dramatic in all history, and from that moment his energy and intelligence were entirely at the service of the Gospel. He became the Apostle of the Gentiles, planting churches from Antioch to Rome, and his letters, which make up a large part of the New Testament, are among the most profound theological documents ever written.

Both Apostles died as martyrs in Rome during the persecution of Nero, around the years 64 to 68. Peter was crucified upside down, at his own request, judging himself unworthy to die in the same manner as his Lord. Paul, as a Roman citizen, was beheaded. Their tombs in Rome became the most important pilgrimage sites in the Western world. The Basilica of Saint Peter over the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles, and the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls over the tomb of the Apostle of the Gentiles, have drawn pilgrims for nearly two thousand years and continue to do so today.

Their joint feast celebrates not a rivalry but a complementarity: Peter the rock of unity and authority, Paul the doctor of universal grace; Peter who knew the Lord in the flesh, Paul who encountered Him in blazing mystical light; both dying for the same Gospel, both buried in the same city, both venerated by the whole Church as the fathers and teachers of the Christian faith.