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Saint
Peter and Saint Paul
Apostles and Martyrs
29 June 67
Saint
Peter and Saint Paul: two different persons called by our Saviour Jesus Christ
to preach the same Gospel of love and salvation.
Saint
Peter, called Simon before his meeting with Jesus, changed his name to
Cephas (Peter). His Jewish faith was inherited from his family and cultivated in
the Synagogue, a Jewish context with some Hellenistic influence like the one in
Galilee, with a mixture of ethnic groups. Simon-Peter was a simple man, a
fisherman who met Jesus and became a “fisher of men”.
Saint
Paul, a Roman citizen, was initially called Saul. He was a zealous man with
an extensive theological culture achieved in Tarsus and in Jerusalem. Though
contemporary with Jesus, he never met Him during His life on earth. Out of a
great zeal for the Jewish tradition, Saul persecuted the new community of the
disciples of Jesus. While doing so, he met Jesus, who asked him: “Saul, why
are you persecuting Me?” (Acts 9,4). Then he understood that Jesus is alive
and is the real Messiah. At the same time, he learned that Jesus Christ, the
Head of the Church, is inseparable from the Church, His Body. Then Saul the
Persecutor, converted and baptized, became Paul the Apostle, the most zealous
missionary of Christ and of His Church.
Different
in place of birth and culture and professional formation, Saint Peter and Saint
Paul were called to be apostles also in a different way and received from Christ
and from the Church different missions: to Saint Peter, the preaching of the
Gospel among the Jewish people and to Saint Paul, the mission among the
Gentiles.
What
do Saint Peter and Saint Paul have in common?: The essential and the plenitude.
That means fervent faith in Christ and living in communion with Him. Both of
them had a powerful experience of repentance or conversion. Peter denied Christ
three times. Then he wept bitterly and loved Christ until his death in
martyrdom. Saint Paul persecuted the Church of Christ and then regretted it for
all his life; he worked for the Church more than any other. Peter and Paul also
have in common their strong love for Christ and for His Church. Both were
martyred in Rome, and the date of 29 June 67 A.D. has been kept in the
tradition of the Church.
Saint
Peter and Saint Paul are for us teachers of the faith, model missionaries and
intercessors for the life and unity of the Church. Through their life, deeds and
writings, they urge us to love Christ, His Gospel and His Church, to work for
the healing and salvation of all human persons and people, without difference of
race and gender, nation or social status. They are for us teachers of
reconciliation, of forgiveness, of unity and of holiness. They teach us to pray
continuously, to work good deeds continuously and never to count on ourselves
more than on the grace of the living God shown in Jesus Christ.
Acknowledgements:
Text adapted from Conference
of European Churches
Image from Russian
Orthodoxy