June is a festive time for the Universal Church. The Solemnity of Pentecost concludes the Easter season, and the Sundays following are the Solemnities of the Holy Trinity and Corpus Christi, but this year we are blessed to also celebrate on a Sunday the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul. A solemnity is the highest-ranking liturgical celebration, commemorating pivotal events in Salvation history such as Christmas, Easter, Pentecost or the Immaculate Conception, and many of these are Holy Days of obligation. So, what makes Saints Peter and Paul such a solemn feast?
We can gain insight from the East, specifically in the Byzantine tradition. Look at how Sts. Peter and Paul are referenced during the prayers at Divine Liturgy for their feast:
“O Leaders of the Apostles and Teachers of the universe, implore the Master of all creation to grant peace to the world and great mercy to our souls.”
And at Vespers, or Evening Prayer, we hear the following:
“Let us extol Peter and Paul, those two great Luminaries of the Church, for they shine brighter than the sun in the firmament of faith.”
Clearly if these two are “Teachers of the universe” and brighter than the sun, they certainly deserve the commemoration of their feast day to be ranked among the highest of all saints on the calendar! We all know that St. Peter was given the keys to heaven as Jesus Christ’s vicar on earth, the first pope.
But as many great saints do, these apostles have nicknames. St. Peter is often called the “Prince of the Apostles” while St. Paul is typically called the “Apostle to the Gentiles”. While we celebrate both men on the same day, they both played different roles in the life of the early Church.
But what’s beautiful about this special solemnity is that we focus on two specific roles of the Church. One role of the Church is to govern. That’s why we have the Magisterium. It ensures us that we are living in God’s truth. When all the bishops are united with the pope, we can be assured that a certain teaching is true. We were promised this certitude by Jesus himself before he ascended into heaven. This is embodied in St. Peter, and it really is comforting to know that no matter what, the gates of hell will never prevail against this Church that Jesus founded.
And then on the other hand, the Church is meant to go out to others. Since we are the Church, the members of Christ the Head, we have a duty to go out and spread the gospel message. We may not all have as much success as St. Paul did, but that doesn’t mean we have to stop trying. Don’t we live in a world that has become largely “Gentile”? That is, a world that really doesn’t know God much at all?
Our world is much like the one that Saints Peter and Paul lived in. There’s a lot of work to do here in the twenty-first century in regards to building the kingdom of God. But it’s not impossible. If these two great apostles could do so much on their own, just think what 200, or even 2,000 Catholics with a similar mindset could do! Like St. Paul, we need to be an apostle to the “Gentiles” of our age, and like St. Peter, we need to stand firmly on the “rock” upon which Jesus founded his Church. If there’s anything to take from this week’s solemnity, it’s that each and every one of us Catholics are called to do what St. Peter and St. Paul were called to do. If we haven’t really answered that call yet, now is a perfect time to resolve ourselves to do so.
God Bless,
