This week we celebrate the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, a day when we commemorate the authority of St. Peter as head of the Apostles, and his faithful helper St. Paul, the great evangelizer of the Gentiles. If St. Peter is our leader in the faith, then St. Paul is his fearless soldier.\u00a0 Peter, one of the 12 apostles, was made the head of the 12 by Jesus Himself.\u00a0\u00a0 St. Paul is considered an apostle in the Roman Liturgy, even though he was not one of the twelve, because of his extensive apostolic work.\u00a0 He makes mention of his unusual status in 1 Corinthians 15 where he said that he was \u2018born out of the normal course of time\u2019, because he came to know Jesus only after he had risen from the dead, and after having himself persecuted the Church.\u00a0 Paul was miraculously converted by Christ in Damascus and went from being the greatest persecutor to arguably the greatest evangelist.<\/p>\n
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI once remarked that\u00a0 \u201ca very ancient tradition which dates back to apostolic times claims that [St. Peter and St. Paul\u2019s] last meeting before their martyrdom actually took place not far from [St. Peter\u2019s Basilica]: the two are supposed to have embraced and blessed each other. [And so] on the main portal of this Basilica they are depicted together, with scenes of both martyrdoms. Thus, from the outset, Christian tradition has considered Peter and Paul to have been inseparable, even if each had a different mission to accomplish<\/em>. [As St. Augustine said]: “One day is assigned for the celebration of the martyrdom of the two Apostles. But those two were one. Although their martyrdom occurred on different days, they were one” (Sermon 295, 7, 8). <\/em><\/p>\n St. Paul says in Galatians that after he was converted to Christ he went to consult with St. Peter for 15 days, and he said he saw none of the other Apostles except for James the Less.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that interesting.\u00a0 This is one of many passages which indicates that Peter had a chief position of authority among the Apostles. If Peter was in charge of them he was in charge of the whole church.<\/p>\n We know that familiar passage in Matthew when Our Lord Jesus asked the disciples:\u00a0 \u201cWho do men say that the son of man is?\u00a0 And they said, \u201cSome say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.\u00a0 He said to them, \u201cBut who do you say that I am?\u201d.\u00a0 Simon Peter replied, \u201cThou art the Christ the son of the living God.\u201d\u00a0 And Jesus answered him, \u201cBlessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to thee, but my father who is in heaven.\u00a0 And I say to thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 Upon what rock?\u00a0 Upon the rock of Peter, who because he professed the faith that Jesus was the son of God, by a revelation of God the Father, would become the one responsible for the preserving of the profession of faith until the end of time by some special gift of God.<\/p>\n There\u2019s an old expression:\u00a0 Ubi Petrus ibi ecclesia<\/em>, where Peter is, there is the Church.\u00a0 God has blessed all the popes with a special protection to preserve the doctrines on faith and morals, so much so that even when we had really bad Popes, and we have had about 6 or 7 of those in the history of the Church, somehow the doctrine was preserved unstained and the Church continued.\u00a0 It\u2019s a miracle really, a protection of the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n Knowing this we can better understand why an \u201cautocephalous\u201d mentality is incompatible with our Catholic faith.\u00a0 What is meant by \u201cautocephalous\u201d?\u00a0 It\u2019s the attitude of the Orthodox Churches \u2013 and other so-called “traditional” societies, who operate independently of the Holy See.\u00a0 In doing so they consider themselves self-sufficient — as a result the Pope, the successor of St. Peter, is reduced to holding a mere primacy of honour. They pray for him, sure, but refuse to submit to his authority in any practical way.\u00a0 In other words, they make themselves their own heads.<\/p>\n But we know this is contrary to our Catholic Faith.\u00a0 We cannot operate independently of the successor of St. Peter, independently of the Holy See, without eventually falling into schism, whether material or formal.\u00a0 At its core is a protestant principle \u2013 this idea that we do not really need a visible head for the Church.\u00a0 This leads to a sense that the hierarchy is simply not relevant.\u00a0 It explains why they are so divided as each community makes itself its own separate community.\u00a0 By making themselves autocephalous they end up making the Church as a whole essentially headless.\u00a0 As if the Body can operate apart from the head.\u00a0 No we need to remain united to the visible Church, or, as Fr. Mole used to say, remain at the heart of the Church, despite the storms the Church experiences from within and from without.\u00a0 Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesiae.<\/p>\n So as we honour Ss. Peter & Paul this week, let us renew our commitment to the Gospel by imitating St. Paul and staying united to Peter, confident in Jesus\u2019 promise that the Gates of Hell will no prevail.\u00a0 And let us renew our understanding of the faith by opening up our catechisms and studying them again, so that we too can know the faith and be apostles in our own way to those around us and under our care so that it may be passed on and preserved, so that as Catholics we may have that unity of faith so desired by Our Lord who said: \u201cMay they be One, as the Father and I are One\u201d.\u00a0 Peter and Paul were one in the Faith.\u00a0 Let us ask them to pray for us, on this their feast day, for that same unity of faith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This week we celebrate the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, a day when we commemorate the authority of St. Peter as head of the Apostles, and his faithful helper St. Paul, the great evangelizer of the Gentiles. If St. Peter is our leader in the faith, then St. Paul is his fearless soldier.\u00a0 Peter, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":382,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stclement-ottawa.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stclement-ottawa.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stclement-ottawa.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stclement-ottawa.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stclement-ottawa.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8080"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/stclement-ottawa.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14381,"href":"https:\/\/stclement-ottawa.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8080\/revisions\/14381"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stclement-ottawa.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stclement-ottawa.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stclement-ottawa.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stclement-ottawa.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}