Feast of St. Peter - Rector's Rambling for June 29, 2025

     
Today we take one more week before donning the green hangings and vestments of Trinitytide,  keeping the June 29th Prayer Book Holy Day of St. Peter.

The newer calendar of the Episcopal Church, as well as the Roman Catholic Church, combines both St. Peter and St. Paul on this day.  And both of them are also commemorated separately, a week apart, in January.  Those two Feast Days mark Peter’s Confession of Jesus Christ as Messiah, and St. Paul’s Conversion story.

The June 29th Feast Day remembers St. Peter as a martyr for the faith, although the gospel reading for today is  the same one as his confession of Jesus as the Christ for the January Feast Day. 

St. Peter made his way to Rome, the center of the Empire, where as the primary apostle, he established his leadership of the Church there.  St. Paul also ended up in Rome at the same time.  To build a strong outpost of the Church there meant that it could be a missionary center to Europe.  Just as it is said that all roads led to Rome, so too all roads led from Rome as well.  Merchants, soldiers, and travelers coming to Rome could be evangelized and take the Gospel with them as they departed the capital city.

It is believed that Peter was executed during the persecution of Christians by the Emperor Nero June 29 in the year 64, a few months after the great fire that destroyed the city.  Tradition says that he asked to be crucified head down because he was not worthy to be crucified as his Lord was.  The crucifixion and his burial took place on the Vatican Hill, where later the Emperor Constantine built a basilica church over his tomb.  The current church was built there in the 16th Century