Today is June 29, the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles.
In the readings for today’s feast, we read, “He 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'” (Mt 16:16).
Today we celebrate the twin pillars of the Church: Saints Peter and Paul. Apostles, martyrs and missionaries, they stand at the foundation of the Christian faith. And while it may seem like we’ve moved on from the Sacred Heart after yesterday’s feast of Mary’s Immaculate Heart, in truth, today’s solemnity is deeply connected to the Heart of Christ.
Why? Because Peter and Paul were witnesses to that Heart — men whose own hearts were transformed by the overwhelming mercy and love of Jesus.
Peter, the man who denied Christ, was met with a threefold act of forgiveness by the Risen Lord. Paul, once a persecutor, was struck down on the road to Damascus and raised up in grace. Both men encountered the burning love of the Sacred Heart and were never the same.
Proclaiming the mystery of divine love
That love led them to martyrdom: “Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Both Peter and Paul laid down their lives out of love for Christ, their greatest friend.
They were apostles, yes, but not apostles of power or prestige. They were apostles of love, sent to build up the Church on the foundation of Christ’s heart. Christ is the true cornerstone, and it is his love that binds the Church together.
Both were preachers of the Eucharist: the Sacrament of the Sacred Heart. Peter at Pentecost and Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthians proclaimed the mystery of divine love poured out in Christ’s Body and Blood.
Though their missions were different — Peter to the Jews, Paul to the Gentiles — they were united in love for Christ and his Church. Their feast day today is a sign of the unity in diversity that marks the Catholic Church, a unity that flows only from the pierced Heart of Christ.
So today, let’s pray that our hearts, like theirs, may be caught on fire with divine love.
Let us pray,
O God, who on the Solemnity of the Apostles Peter and Paul give us the noble and holy joy of this day, grant, we pray, that your Church may in all things follow the teaching of those through whom she received the beginnings of right religion. Through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
