Homily for the Vigil Mass
of the Solemnity of Sts. Peter &
Paul
June 28, 2023
Gal 1: 11-20
John 21: 15-19
St. Edmund, Edmonton, Alberta
In
the gospel this evening, Jesus entrusts his flock to Peter to tend and to
feed. Jesus so charges him 3 times,
which we interpret as his command in response to Peter’s 3-fold affirmation of
his love for Jesus after he’d denied him 3 times. Peter had sinned, but he truly loved Jesus
and eventually died for him: “when you
grow old, you’ll stretch out your hands, and someone will … take you where you
don’t wish to go” (John 21:18). Peter
was crucified in Rome during the persecution of Nero and buried in a cemetery
on the slope of the Vatican hill—a site which Christian memory preserved
secretly for almost 3 centuries until Emperor Constantine legalized the Church
and built a church over Peter’s grave.
Today pilgrims can visit that cemetery and come near Peter’s tomb deep
under St. Peter’s Basilica.
St.
Paul, too, was a sinner, as we heard in the 2d reading. He had judged himself righteous before God
because of his observance of the Jewish Law and had “persecuted the Church of
God” (Gal 1:13-14), until he had a personal encounter with Christ, who bestowed
on him unmerited grace: pardon and
conversion leading to salvation (1:15-16).
When
we celebrate the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, we’re celebrating the apostolic
faith, the Gospel they preached and confirmed with their blood in Rome. That’s the Gospel of our redemption by the
gift of God, by grace. Grace pardons our
sins, as it did Peter’s and Paul’s. In a
few minutes, we’ll pray at the altar that “the more we doubt our own merits,
the more we may rejoice that we are to be saved by [God’s] loving kindness”
(Prayer over the Offerings).
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