June 29, 2014

HOMILY for the Solemnity of St Peter & St Paul

Acts 12:1-11; Ps 33; 2 Tim 4:6-8. 17-18; Matt 16:13-19

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A few years ago I made a point of visiting all the early Christian basilicas of Rome to look at its mosaics. In every one of them, either in the apse of the main arch over the Altar, these two great apostles of Rome can be seen. As the Office hymn for today’s feast says, Saint Peter and Saint Paul ennobled the city of Rome with their martyrs’ blood, with their heroic witness to Christ; so the first churches of Rome were ennobled with their images in beautiful mosaic artwork. I think that these images, or rather, how Ss Peter and Paul were depicted in the art of the Roman Church can offer us some insight into how we Christians from the earliest centuries understood their significance.

One of the oldest depictions of Ss Peter and Paul is the so-called traditio legis, the handing on of the Law, which is believed to have been found in the apse of old St Peter’s in Rome. A mosaic in the mausoleum of Constanza, dating to 325, as well as numerous 4th-century sarcophagi excavated from the Vatican necropolis all show Christ’s seated and giving a scroll to St Peter. In the Santa Constanza apse an inscription on the scroll reads: “The Lord gives the Law”. 

I believe this image is a Roman adaptation of today’s Gospel in which Christ gives his authority to St Peter and, hence, to his Church. The image of the keys which we find in the Gospel is a royal image, echoing Isaiah 22, in which the key of David’s royal household is given to the royal chamberlain, Eliakim. However, Rome’s monarchy ended around 510 BC. Instead power and authority was vested in the Law and its legislature. In this context, then, the Scriptural handing on of the keys of authority to St Peter and the Church has been altered into a scroll of the law, but the idea remains the same. For Jesus says to his apostles: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them [and] teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt 28:18b-20). 

In all the images of the traditio legis, both Jesus and St Peter hold on to the same scroll. For St Peter and his successors, the popes, do not have any authority of their own. Rather their authority is Christ’s who entrusts it to them; Jesus shepherds his Church through them and with them. What kind of authority is it? It is the authority of charity; the authority, therefore, to make disciples, to baptize and to teach Jesus’ commandments, the chief of which is charity. As such, the Church has authority to teach all truth in matters of faith and morals concerning the salvation of souls. And in these matters she cannot fall into error for Christ has promised to be with his Church always until “the close of the age” (Mt 28:20). 

In particular, Jesus does this by guiding Peter and his successors, sharing his authority with the Magisterium of the Church. Hence today’s first reading can be said to vividly recount that God acts to lead and guide St Peter and his successors in his ways, freeing them from the prison of error. And this, essentially, is what the doctrine of papal infallibility is about – that the pope, and thus the Church, will not teach falsehood in matters of faith and morals. 

So the popular idea that papal infallibility means the pope can do whatever he wants and change so-called Church ‘policy’ is itself an error. For, while popes can adapt the disciplines of the Church, they cannot change what Jesus has taught, what is handed on to the Church in Tradition and Scripture for all generations. As St Paul says to Timothy today: “I have kept the faith” (2 Tim 4:7). And elsewhere, in his letter to the Corinthians, he says: “I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you” (1 Cor 11:23). So, the image of the traditio legis, carved in stone and laid in mosaic, reminds us of where the Church’s saving authority comes from, and to whom St Peter and St Paul and, ultimately, every Christian is accountable: Jesus Christ. 

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As many converts to Catholicism have said, one of the key reasons the Faith is attractive is because Jesus has entrusted his authority to his Church through Peter, as today’s Gospel attests. And St Peter’s successors continue to ensure that Christ’s teachings are handed on intact. As Pope Benedict XVI said, the pope is “the one responsible for making sure that the faith that keeps people together is believed, that it remains alive, and that its identity is inviolate. But only the Lord himself has the power to keep people in the faith as well”. 

This idea is related to a second type of apse mosaic which develops the older scene. In the 6th-century basilica of Ss Cosmas and Damian Christ is holding a scroll still and on either side are St Peter and St Paul. But instead of holding the scroll with him, with one hand they are both gesturing towards Jesus, and their other hand is around the shoulder of one of the patron saints of the church. It’s a beautiful and quite touching gesture of friendship, which is essentially what Jesus’ call to “make disciples of all nations” is. For discipleship is an invitation to friendship with God, and the Church’s task of evangelization, entrusted to every one of us, is to bring others to friendship with Christ. We’re called to say to our friends: “Let me introduce you to Jesus, my best of friends”. As Pope Francis says: “Being a disciple means being constantly ready to bring the love of Jesus to others… always keeping in mind the fundamental message: the personal love of God who became man, who gave himself up for us, who is living and who offers us his salvation and his friendship”. 

But the Jesus whom we befriend and who we introduce to others has to be the real Christ and not one we’d prefer, who is made in our own image. Rather, we’re to be made in his image through grace. And where do we see his true image? He is the One whom the apostles Peter and Paul knew and introduced us to in the Scriptures; the Christ who is witnessed to in the Church’s Tradition; the Jesus whom we experience and love in prayer and the Liturgy. So, this mosaic reminds us of what the Church is: the fellowship of Christ’s true friends, who constantly look at his face, and who have one arm of friendship around others and the other hand pointing to Jesus as he really is. 

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Finally, there is a third and somewhat unique image of Ss Peter and Paul from the church of Sta Pudenziana. The mosaic dates to around 390, and it’s the oldest figurative representation surviving in a Roman church. Christ is enthroned in a senator’s toga, and all the apostles around him are dressed in Roman finery. Behind St Peter and St Paul stand personifications of the Church of the Circumcision (i.e. the Jewish converts), and the Church of the Gentiles (i.e., the rest of us), respectively. These four look directly at Christ who is looking across at us. Together the Jewish and Gentile Church represent the universal Church, the “all nations” into which Christ had sent his apostles. 

This image, therefore, reminds us that Christ’s Church is both Roman and Catholic. This is to say that our faith comes from these two great saints who, Providentially, were martyred in Rome. Rome, as such, has a double dose of apostolic witness to the true Faith. Thus, our Catholic Faith, though universal and spread throughout the world, though necessarily diverse in culture and experience, is nevertheless rooted in their witness; strengthened and united by communion with the pope, the Bishop of Rome. For it is through St Peter’s successors, through the authority entrusted to them, that each of us can come to see Christ, to look at his beautiful face, as they do.  And he? Jesus looks at you and me and he says: “I call you friends” (cf Jn 15:15). So let us not be afraid to go to him, led by the embracing arms of St Peter and St Paul.

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