Two Apostles, One Confession, One Sacrifice
MASS Nunc scio vere
LESSON Acts 12: 1-11
GOSPEL St Matthew 16: 13-19
HOMILIST Mt Revd Jerome Lloyd OSJV
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
“Now I know in very deed, that the Lord hath sent His angel, and hath delivered me.”
With these words the sacred liturgy opens the solemn feast of the Princes of the Apostles. Nunc scio vere. Now I know truly. Peter speaks after the chains have fallen, the prison doors have opened, and the angel has led him beyond the reach of Herod. Yet these words belong not to Peter alone. They express the whole mystery of this day. Peter came to know truly through his weakness, his restoration, and his martyrdom. Paul came to know truly when the light of Christ struck him to the ground and changed the persecutor into an Apostle. Both were brought, by different roads, to the same certainty: Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God, His grace is stronger than human weakness, and His truth is worth the shedding of one’s blood.
Today the Church does not merely place two saints beside one another. She celebrates two men joined by one divine vocation, one apostolic faith, one Roman martyrdom, and one heavenly crown. Peter and Paul differ in almost everything that belongs to nature. Peter is the Galilean fisherman, direct, ardent, often impetuous. Paul is the learned Pharisee of Tarsus, trained in the Law, formidable in argument, tireless in labour. Peter is called from his nets beside the Sea of Galilee, around the beginning of Our Lord’s public ministry. Paul is conquered by Christ upon the road to Damascus, probably around A.D. 34 to 36, after he has persecuted the infant Church. Peter receives the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Paul receives the commission to carry the name of Christ before nations, kings, and the children of Israel.
Yet grace does not abolish their differences. It consecrates them. Peter is made the visible rock of unity; Paul becomes the great herald of Catholicity. Peter confirms the brethren; Paul gathers the Gentiles. Peter guards the centre; Paul carries the Gospel to the ends of the earth. At the Council of Jerusalem, around A.D. 49, their missions meet within the unity of the one Church. In Rome, under the persecution of Nero, their blood is at last mingled in one testimony.
Ancient Roman tradition associates their martyrdom with June 29, during the Neronian persecution of the A.D. 60s. Peter was crucified upon the Vatican Hill, asking, according to venerable tradition, to be placed head downward because he deemed himself unworthy to die in precisely the same manner as his Lord. Paul, possessing the rights of Roman citizenship, was beheaded outside the city upon the road to Ostia. The Vatican Basilica rises over Peter’s tomb. The great Basilica of St Paul-Outside-the-Walls guards the memory of the Apostle of the Gentiles. Pagan Rome killed them; Christian Rome was born from their blood.
The liturgy preserves this Roman consciousness with extraordinary splendour. The feast is a Double of the First Class with a Common Octave. It possesses two stations, one at St Peter’s and the other at St Paul’s. Yet the prayers of the Mass unite the Apostles inseparably: “O God, Who hast consecrated this day to the martyrdom of Thine apostles Peter and Paul.” Two tombs, but one feast. Two vocations, but one Gospel. Two deaths, but one sacrifice.
The Epistle shows us Peter in prison. Herod has already killed James, the brother of John, with the sword. Seeing that this pleases the crowd, he takes Peter also. The Prince of the Apostles is placed between soldiers, bound by two chains, guarded by four files of men, with sentries before the door and an iron gate between himself and freedom.
The powers of this world appear to have calculated everything. Herod has the authority. The soldiers have the weapons. The prison has the walls. Peter has only chains.
But the Church is praying.
“Prayer was made without ceasing by the Church unto God for him.” Herod possesses the prison; the Church appeals to heaven. The soldiers keep watch, but the faithful keep vigil. Then light shines in the darkness. The angel strikes Peter upon the side and commands him to rise. The chains fall. The iron gate opens of itself. Peter passes through the street, and only when the angel has departed does he understand what has happened: “Now I know in very deed, that the Lord hath sent His angel.”
Peter had known Christ before this. He had heard the Sermon on the Mount. He had seen the dead raised. He had walked upon the sea. He had witnessed the Transfiguration. At Cæsarea Philippi he had made the great confession: “Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Yet knowledge must be purified by suffering. Peter once trusted too much in Peter. At the Last Supper he promised that, even if all others should be scandalised, he would never abandon the Lord. Within hours he denied three times that he even knew Him. His courage failed before a servant maid.
The man who said, “I will lay down my life for Thee,” had first to learn that no man can lay down his life for Christ unless Christ gives him the grace to do so.
This is why Nunc scio vere is so profound. It is not the cry of self-confidence. It is the confession of a man who has learned his own weakness and God’s fidelity. Peter now knows truly that strength comes from grace, not temperament; that the Church is preserved by providence, not human calculation; and that the gates of hell cannot prevail, not because churchmen are always wise or courageous, but because Christ is faithful to His promises.
The Gospel takes us back to Cæsarea Philippi. Our Lord asks: “Whom do men say that the Son of man is?” The answers are respectful but insufficient. Some say John the Baptist, some Elias, some Jeremias, or one of the prophets. The world is often willing to admire Christ as long as it is not required to adore Him. It will permit Him to be a teacher, a reformer, a prophet, or a moral example. What it resists is Peter’s answer: “Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God.”
That confession is the foundation of everything. The Church stands not upon religious sentiment, political usefulness, social consensus, or the changing judgments of each age. She stands upon revealed truth: Jesus Christ is true God and true man, the only-begotten Son of the Father, the sole Redeemer of mankind.
“Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but My Father Who is in heaven.”
Then comes the divine commission: “Thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build My Church.” Christ establishes Peter not as the owner of the Church, but as her visible foundation under Himself; not as the inventor of truth, but as its guardian; not as the master of revelation, but as its servant. The keys are given after the confession. Peter’s authority exists to preserve the faith contained in the words: “Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God.”
The papacy is therefore not the exaltation of human personality. It is an office instituted to secure unity in revealed truth. The man may be weak; the office is divine. The man may tremble; Christ’s promise does not. Peter may be imprisoned; the keys are not imprisoned. Peter may die; the Rock remains because Christ continues to build His Church.
Beside this mystery of Peter stands the mystery of Paul.
Paul also had to be delivered from a prison, though his prison was not at first made of stone and iron. It was the prison of his own certainty. Saul of Tarsus believed that he saw clearly. He possessed learning, discipline, ancestry, zeal, and religious reputation. He believed the followers of Jesus to be deceivers and blasphemers. He consented to the death of St Stephen and set out for Damascus carrying authority to arrest the Christians.
Then a greater authority arrests him.
A light brighter than the sun casts him to the ground. A voice asks: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” Not, “Why persecutest thou My disciples?” but, “Why persecutest thou Me?” Christ identifies Himself with His Church. The Head and the members form one Mystical Body. To wound the Church is to wound Christ. To love Christ is to love the Church. To serve Christ is to spend oneself for the salvation of His members.
Paul asks: “Who art Thou, Lord?” The answer overturns his world: “I am Jesus Whom thou persecutest.”
Paul rises from the ground unable to see. The man who thought he possessed light must enter into darkness before he can see truly. For three days he is blind, until Ananias is sent to him. He receives his sight, is baptised, and begins to preach the very faith he had tried to destroy.
Paul too can say: Nunc scio vere. Now I know truly.
He knows that zeal without truth can become cruelty. He knows that learning without humility can deepen blindness. He knows that no man is beyond the reach of grace. The persecutor becomes the Apostle; the enemy becomes the chosen vessel; the man who guarded the garments of Stephen’s murderers will himself surrender his neck to the sword for the name of Jesus.
Peter and Paul therefore reveal the two great triumphs of grace. In Peter, weakness is made firm. In Paul, error is conquered by truth. Peter is restored after denial. Paul is converted after persecution. Peter must cease trusting in his courage. Paul must cease trusting in his judgment. Neither is chosen because he is naturally sufficient. Both are chosen so that the power of Christ may be perfected in human infirmity.
Their martyrdom is the completion of this work.
Peter, who once fled from the possibility of suffering, at last stretches out his hands upon the cross. Paul, who once inflicted suffering upon the faithful, offers his own blood for the faith. Their deaths are not defeats. They are priestly acts of self-offering united to the one Sacrifice of Calvary.
This is why the feast leads us inevitably to the altar. Peter’s confession and Paul’s preaching find their centre here. The Christ Whom Peter confessed as the Son of the living God, the Christ Who appeared to Paul upon the road to Damascus, becomes present upon this altar under the appearances of bread and wine. The Apostles could pour out their blood because they had first been nourished by His Blood. They became sacrifices because they had been united to the Sacrifice.
The Secret therefore asks that the prayer of the Apostles may accompany the sacrifice offered to be consecrated to God’s name. The Preface implores the eternal Shepherd not to desert His flock, but to keep it under constant protection through the blessed Apostles and the pastors appointed as vicars of His work. The Communion returns us to the foundation: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church.”
Everything in the Mass speaks of permanence in the midst of persecution. Herod passes. Nero passes. The prison passes. The sword passes. The Cross itself becomes a throne. The empire that condemned the Apostles has disappeared, but their doctrine is still preached, their tombs are still venerated, and the Sacrifice for which they died is still offered.
“The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Our Lord did not promise that hell would not attack. He promised that it would not prevail. The Church will endure persecution from without and confusion within. Her children may be scattered. Her shepherds may be chained. Her enemies may congratulate themselves that the iron gate is closed forever.
The chains fall when God wills. The gate opens at His command. The Gospel passes through walls, kingdoms, centuries, and revolutions. The Church does not live because the world approves of her. She lives because Christ built her. She does not possess truth because men continually reinvent it. She possesses truth because she received it from the Apostles.
The Collect asks that the Church may “in all things follow their teaching from whom it received the right ordering of religion in the beginning.” That is the grace we must seek today: not merely to admire Peter and Paul, but to follow their doctrine; not merely to celebrate their courage, but to share their faith; not merely to honour their tombs, but to live and die within the Church they watered with their blood.
Let us ask St Peter for firmness in confession, especially when fear tempts us to silence. Let us ask St Paul for the humility to be corrected by Christ when our own certainty has become blindness. Let us ask them both for fidelity to the one Catholic and Apostolic faith, for love of the Roman Church consecrated by their martyrdom, and for courage to prefer truth to comfort, grace to self-reliance, and eternity to the passing approval of men.
Then, when the final prison opens and the last chain falls, we also may say—not by presumption, but by the mercy of God:
Now I know in very deed that the Lord hath sent His angel and hath delivered me.
For Christ is faithful. His truth does not change. His Sacrifice does not fail. His Church shall not be overcome.
To Him be honour and glory, together with the Father and the Holy Ghost, now and for ever. Amen.
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