Solemnity of Saints Peter & Paul - 29 June 2025
29th June 2025
“There must be general rejoicing over this holy company whom God has appointed for our example in patience and for our confirmation in faith. But we must glory even more in the excellence of their fathers, Peter and Paul, whom the grace of God has raised to such a height among all the members of the Church that He has set them like twin lights of eyes in that Body whose head is Christ.” - Pope St Leo the Great
Excerpt of the Homily of Pope Benedict XVI on the Solemnity of Sts Peter & Paul, 29 June 2010:
"In their great wealth, the biblical texts of this Eucharistic Liturgy on the Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul highlight a theme that could be summed up in these words: God is close to his faithful servants and delivers them from all evil and delivers the Church from negative powers. It is the theme of the Church's freedom, that presents an historical aspect and another that is more profoundly spiritual.
"This theme runs through the whole of today's Liturgy of the Word. The First and Second Readings speak respectively of St Peter and St Paul, stressing God's liberating action in their regard.
"The text of the Acts of the Apostles especially describes with an abundance of detail the intervention of the Angel of the Lord who sets Peter free from his chains and leads him out of the prison of Jerusalem in which Herod the King had had him locked up and placed under strict surveillance (cf. Acts 12:1-11).
"Paul, on the other hand, in writing to Timothy when he felt he was approaching the end of his earthly life, makes a concise summary of it from which emerges the fact that the Lord has always been close to him, has delivered him from many dangers and will free him again, introducing him into his eternal Kingdom (cf. 2 Tim 4:6-8, 17-18).
"The theme is reinforced by the Responsorial Psalm (Ps 34[33]), and is also given a special development in the Gospel passage of Peter's profession where Christ promises that the powers of death shall not prevail over the Church (cf. Mt 16:18).
"A close look at this theme reveals a certain progression. In the First Reading a specific episode is recounted that shows the Lord's intervention to release Peter from prison.
"In the Second Reading Paul, on the basis of his extraordinary apostolic experience, says that he is convinced that the Lord, who has already rescued him ‘from the lion's mouth’, will rescue him ‘from every evil’, opening the gates of Heaven to him; on the other hand, in the Gospel nothing further is said of the individual Apostles but it speaks rather of the Church as a whole and of her indemnity from the forces of evil, meant in the full and profound sense.
"Thus we see that Jesus' promise — ‘the powers of death shall not prevail against’ the Church — does indeed include the historical experiences of persecution that Peter and Paul and other Gospel witnesses suffered, but goes beyond them, with the intention of assuring protection, especially from threats of a spiritual kind; in accordance with what Paul himself writes in his Letter to the Ephesians: ‘for we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present world of darkness, against the evil spirits in the heavens’ (cf. Eph 6:12).
"Indeed if we think of the two millenniums of the Church's history, we may note — as the Lord Jesus had foretold (cf. Mt 10:16-33) — that trials for Christians have never been lacking and in certain periods and places have assumed the character of true and proper persecution. Yet, despite the suffering they cause, they do not constitute the gravest danger for the Church. Indeed she is subjected to the greatest danger by what pollutes the faith and Christian life of her members and communities, corroding the integrity of the Mystical Body, weakening her capacity for prophecy and witness, and marring the beauty of her face.
"The Pauline Letters already testified to this reality. The First Letter to the Corinthians, for example, responds precisely to certain problems of division, inconsistence and infidelity to the Gospel that seriously threaten the Church. However, the Second Letter to Timothy — a passage to which we listened — also speaks of the perils of the ‘last days’, identifying them with negative attitudes that belong to the world and can contaminate the Christian community: selfishness, vanity, pride, the attachment to money, etc. (cf. 3:1-5).
"The Apostle's conclusion is reassuring: men who do evil, he writes, ‘will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all’ (3:9). Therefore a guarantee exists of the freedom that God assures the Church, freedom both from material ties that seek to prevent or to coerce her mission and from spiritual and moral evils that can tarnish her authenticity and credibility.
"I would like to draw one last instruction from the word of God, and in particular from Christ's promise that the powers of death will not prevail over His Church. These words can also have an ecumenical meaning since one of the typical effects of the action of the Evil One is, precisely, the internal division of the ecclesial Community. Ruptures are in fact symptoms of the power of sin that continues to act in members of the Church even after the redemption. However, Christ's word is clear: ‘Non praevalebunt — they shall not prevail’ (Mt 16:18).
"The unity of the Church is rooted in her union with Christ and the cause of full Christian unity — that must ever be sought and renewed, from generation to generation — is also sustained by His prayer and His promise.
"In the struggle against the spirit of evil, God gave us in Jesus, the ‘Advocate’ defender, and after his Pasch, ‘another Counsellor’ (cf. Jn 14:16), the Holy Spirit, who stays with us always and leads the Church towards the fullness of the truth (cf. Jn 14:16; 16:13) that is also the fullness of love and of unity."
Novena Petition Prayer to Sts Peter & Paul
O holy Apostles, Peter and Paul, I choose you this day and forever to be my special patrons and advocates; thee, Saint Peter, Prince of the Apostles, because thou art the Rock, upon which Almighty God hath built His Church; thee, Saint Paul, because thou wast fore-chosen by God as the Vessel of election and the Preacher of truth in the whole world.
Obtain for me, I pray you, lively faith, firm hope, and burning love; complete detachment from myself, contempt of the world, patience in adversity, humility in prosperity, attention in prayer, purity of heart, a right intention in all my works, diligence in fulfilling the duties of my state of life, constancy in my resolutions, resignation to the will of God and perseverance in the grace of God even unto death; that so, by means of your intercession and your glorious merits, I may be able to overcome the temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil, and may be made worthy to appear before the chief and eternal Shepherd of souls, Jesus Christ, Who with the Father and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth for endless ages, to enjoy His presence and love Him forever. Amen. 💖💐🙏