Catholic and Apostolic

The Solemnity of Saint Peter and Paul. Fr Dominic Ryan considers the importance of these two great Apostles.

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, two crucial saints in the history of the Church. Unsurprisingly both of them made major contributions to the Church’s development. Yet they did so in interestingly different ways, so it behoves us to reflect on that a little as we celebrate them today.

Let’s begin with Peter. It’s well known that during Our Lord’s earthly life, he surrounded himself with a group of friends and companions. Among those friends, however, a group of twelve were particularly important. These became known as ‘the twelve’ and collectively and individually they played key roles in witnessing to Christ and building up his church. However, among the twelve Peter had a particularly important role. He was deputed by Christ to exercise a particular role of leadership within the Church: that of looking after Christ’s flock, a task which continued once Christ had gone to join his Father. And in exercising that task, Peter worked in Jerusalem, then later Antioch, where he became its first bishop and then later still at Rome, where likewise he became its first bishop and thus Rome became Peter’s see.

Paul, on the other hand, was not one of the twelve. Originally a Pharisee, Paul had persecuted Christians until he was famously converted on the road to Damascus. From that time on, he worked tirelessly to promote the faith. He became the Church’s greatest missionary, going back and forth across the Mediterranean world several times during three great missionary journeys.

So we’ve got these two great saints, but why celebrate them both today? Might it have been better to celebrate them on different feast days? I don’t think so, because each Sunday, when we profess our faith during the creed, we say that we believe that the Church is ‘…one, holy, catholic and apostolic…’ And today’s feast, when we celebrate the lives of both these Saints, allows us to focus in a particular way on two of the qualities which we attribute to the Church – that it is catholic and that it is apostolic. So what do they mean and how does the feast help us focus on them?

Let’s take ‘catholic’ first. Basically it just means universal and it’s absolutely central to the Church’s identity. Now the Church is universal in two ways: first, because Christ is present in the Church and has bequeathed to it the fullness of everything that is required for our salvation. Second,  because the Church has a mission to all people. Christ didn’t come just to save a select few; he wanted to save all people. Of course the salvation Christ offers is not forced on us, so despite Christ’s desire to save everyone some people may reject it. Still the offer of salvation is universal and the Church as the body which proclaims that offer must do so to all people and to all places.

Now it’s this second sense of ‘universal’ that’s relevant to Saints Peter and Paul. Because of the Church’s universal mission, the Gospel had to be proclaimed to the ends of the earth. That meant new groups of people would hear it, respond to it and subsequently have to be integrated into the Church. And during these events Peter and Paul played complementary roles – Paul took the gospel to the gentiles, whilst Peter held the Church together through his ministry as it adapted to the presence of large numbers of non-Jewish Christians among it. So in celebrating this feast today, we’re celebrating the events that ultimately made it possible for non-Jewish people to become Christians.

What about the Church as apostolic? Well once again, being apostolic is fundamental to the Church’s identity. The faith the Church preaches and teaches is the faith which was handed on by the apostles, who themselves received it from Jesus Christ. It’s that faith which the Church preaches and it’s that faith which the Church is tasked to preserve, because in the final analysis it’s only that faith which we can be confident will save us. And here again Peter and Paul played a central role. Both of them were apostles, but Paul was the key figure in transmitting the faith to others, whilst Peter was the key figure for regulating the faith of the Church.

So as we celebrate this feast today let’s thank God for the work achieved through Peter and Paul, and let’s pray that the Church will continue to flourish and proclaim the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

Readings: Acts 12:1-11 | 2 Timothy 4:6-8,17-18 | Matthew 16:13-19