The Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul

In some parts of the world the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul is a Holyday of Obligation.  In fact, it was one in the United States until 1840.  Though we are no longer obligated to go to Mass, this feast is so important that when it falls on a Sunday, it “bumps” the usual Sunday readings and prayers.

Tradition has it that these two apostles were in Rome when they were martyred by order of the Emperor Nero after he blamed Christians for a terrible fire that began on July 19, 64 AD and that raged for nine days and destroyed three quarters of the city.

According to Pope Benedict XVI, “the Christian community considered them a kind of counterbalance to the mythical Romulus and Remus, the two brothers held to be the founders of Rome.”  Peter and Paul are considered the founders of the Church in Rome.

But both were unlikely faithful followers of Jesus, much less founders.

St. Peter, named Simon, was a fisherman whom Jesus called to follow Him and whose name he changed to Peter or Rock (see John 1: 42).  It was upon this “Rock” that Jesus said He would build His Church (see Matthew 16: 18).  Yet what a shaky foundation!  Peter famously denied that he even knew Jesus after He was arrested, and he fled in fear for his life.  St. Paul was, in his own words, “a blasphemer and a persecutor and an arrogant man, … the foremost” of sinners” (1 Timothy 1: 13-15).

In both cases we see that “God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God” (1 Corinthians 1: 27-29).

This is the way it has always been and always will be.

How about you?  Where do you fit into this picture?  How has God called you?  How is God calling you today?

Fr. Jim Kubicki, S.J., a Milwaukee native, entered the Jesuits in 1971 and was ordained in 1983. He has ministered among the Lakota Sioux and served as national director of the Apostleship of Prayer from 2003 to 2017. An acclaimed author and retreat leader, he currently offers talks and spiritual direction while serving at St. Francis de Sales Seminary in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.