Catholic Preaching by Father Roger Landry

June 29, 2025 Proclaiming Christ with Courage, Solemnity of SS. Peter and Paul, June 29, 2025

Msgr. Roger J. Landry

Chapel of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY

Solemnity of Saints Peter & Paul

June 29, 2025

Acts 12:1-11, Ps 34, 2 Tm 4:6-8.17-18, Mt 16:13-19

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/6.29.26_Homily_1.mp3

The following text guided the homily:

Sisters, it’s great to be back with you after three and a half months on the road! During much of that time I was in Rome not just for the international meetings of the Pontifical Mission Societies but also for the papal funeral, interregnum, conclave and election. I had the joy to proclaim to all those who throughout the world were watching EWTN’s coverage the historic news that the cardinals had elected not just the 267th Peter but the first Pope ever born in the United States of America. Among all of the coverage we did, one of the most moving was of the Mass the day after Pope Leo XIV’s election when, according to tradition, he returned to the Sistine Chapel where the Cardinals had elected him to celebrate Mass for the Church. The Gospel for that day, which I had the chance to translate live for all the viewers, is today’s Gospel. In it, Pope Leo gave a glimpse not just of how he saw his new papal ministry, but how he saw the role of the Church. I’d like to begin by recalling some of what he proclaimed in his first homily as our pope on May 9.

He began with St. Peter’s confession of Jesus in today’s Gospel, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” and commented: “In these words, Peter, asked by the Master, together with the other disciples, about his faith in him, expressed the patrimony that the Church, through the apostolic succession, has preserved, deepened and handed on for two thousand years. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God: the one Savior, who alone reveals the face of the Father.” Peter, he said, “makes his profession of faith in reply to a specific question: ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ The question is not insignificant. It concerns an essential aspect of our ministry, namely, the world in which we live, with its limitations and its potential, its questions and its convictions.” He said that there were, and remain, two basic answers to that question.

First, he stated, “there is the world’s response, … a world that considers Jesus a completely insignificant person, at best someone with an unusual and striking way of speaking and acting. And so, once his presence becomes irksome because of his demands for honesty and his stern moral requirements, this ‘world’ will not hesitate to reject and eliminate him. Then there is the other possible response to Jesus’ question: that of ordinary people. For them, the Nazarene is not a charlatan, but an upright man, one who has courage, who speaks well and says the right things, like other great prophets in the history of Israel. That is why they follow him, at least for as long as they can do so without too much risk or inconvenience. Yet to them he is only a man, and therefore, in times of danger, during his passion, they, too, abandon him and depart disappointed. What is striking about these two attitudes,” Pope Leo continued, “is their relevance today. They embody notions that we could easily find on the lips of many men and women in our own time, even if, while essentially identical, they are expressed in different language. Even today, there are many settings in which the Christian faith is considered absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent. Settings where other securities are preferred, like technology, money, success, power, or pleasure. These are contexts where it is not easy to preach the Gospel and bear witness to its truth, where believers are mocked, opposed, despised or at best tolerated and pitied. Yet, precisely for this reason, they are the places where our missionary outreach is desperately needed. … Today, too, there are many settings in which Jesus, although appreciated as a man, is reduced to a kind of charismatic leader or superman. This is true not only among non-believers but also among many baptized Christians, who thus end up living, at this level, in a state of practical atheism. This is the world that has been entrusted to us, a world in which … we are called to bear witness to our joyful faith in Jesus the Savior. Therefore, it is essential that we too repeat, with Peter: ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’”

He said that it is “essential to do this, first of all, in our personal relationship with the Lord, in our commitment to a daily journey of conversion. Then, to do so as a Church, experiencing together our fidelity to the Lord and bringing the Good News to all. …I say this first of all to myself, as the Successor of Peter, as I begin my mission as Bishop of Rome” but added that these “words apply more generally to an indispensable commitment for all those in the Church.”

So we’re all called, with St. Peter and his successor, Pope Leo, to make that common confession of faith, of Christ’s divinity, of Christ as the long-awaited Savior, against the indifference, questions, inconveniences, and hopes of the age. To do this requires courage, the courage to state the truth even when others challenge it, the courage to live the truth even when many others, including sometimes in the Church, don’t. And so today, as we celebrate two of the most important persons who have ever lived. without whom we probably wouldn’t be here right now in this chapel worshipping God, I think it’s important to learn from both of them what they teach us about courage. We could, of course, ponder the moving stories of their conversions, callings, and commissioning. We could examine their preaching and writing. We could talk about their missionary journeys as a fisher of men and teacher of the nations. We could look into their friendship and famous confrontation, as Pope Leo did this morning in his homily in St. Peter’s Basilica. But since today we celebrate their martyrdoms — Peter’s by crucifixion in the Circus of Caligula and Nero and Paul’s by beheading in the forest of Aquae Salviae south of Rome — I would like to focus above all on their courage because it is very much a virtue that we Catholics in America need.

Jesus had spoken to us about the courage we’d need to be a Christian during the Last Supper when he said to Peter and the other apostles, “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you. Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘No slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (Jn 15:18-20). Saul before his conversion would be one of the fiercest persecutors of the early Church, presiding over the stoning of St. Stephen, ripping Christians out of their homes and bringing them for trial, and even getting a commission to go to Damascus, Syria, 137 miles away by foot, to arrest the Christians there. This was just the beginning of many waves of persecution. After his conversion, Paul himself would be hunted down for assassination by the very ones with whom he used to collaborate. We see him imprisoned in today’s second reading awaiting execution. In today’s first reading, we see Peter imprisoned and threatened by the very ones who had gotten Jesus crucified. And those scenes would be before Nero would try to scapegoat the Christians for the fire of Rome he himself had set and before other emperors would join in 13 ferocious anti-Christian persecutions before Christianity was legalized in 313.

St. Paul wrote about courage in his spiritual will and testament to his young convert St. Timothy in today’s second reading. He said, “I, Paul, am already being poured out like a libation and the time of my departure is at hand.” He was about to die after having spent his post-converted life pouring out all he had for Christ and for others. “I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.” He had bravely fought the good fight. He had fought for God. He knew there was a battle and in his Second Letter to the Corinthians, he described how arduous that battle was: “Five times at the hands of the Jews I received forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned [and left for dead, but the prayers of the first Christians with Barnabas in Galatia raised him from the dead], three times I was shipwrecked, I passed a night and a day on the deep; on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own race, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, dangers among false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many sleepless nights, through hunger and thirst, through frequent fastings, through cold and exposure (2 Cor 11:24-27). That was the fight he fought to pass on the faith. It would have been very easy for him to have stayed as a tent maker in Tarsus, pondering the Scriptures, getting a good night’s rest in his own bed. He could have simply never engaged the fight or retired early, saying after three scourgings, two shipwrecks and other dangers that it was somebody else’s turn. But his entire life he fought for Christ against “principalities and powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens” (Eph 6:12). And he did so with urgency: “I have finished the race.” Many crawl through life, others go one inch at a time. Others slide back. Still others sightsee and get distracted by everything along the way. Paul recognized that he had one life to give and he ran, with zeal, in order to spread the faith to as many as he could until his time was up. Most importantly he writes, “I kept the faith!” He kept it by passing it on as of the “first importance” (1 Cor 15:3). It wasn’t easy, but he knew that the faith was worth his life, that it was the greatest gift he could give to anyone.

And he shows all Christians how to suffer courageously for the faith. He was able to undergo so much and not lose heart not because he had a superhuman constitution, but because he was suffering together with Christ. He would write to the Philippians, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13). He was able to maintain his strength because of his union with the Lord, a union that grew stronger not weaker whenever he suffered. “I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10). These persecutions and sufferings conformed him to Christ to such a degree that they helped perfect his union with Christ. He would write to the Galatians that through the Cross he had picked up every day, “The world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” His union became so strong that he was able to say, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me” (Gal 2:19-20). And he knew that union in suffering was helping Jesus redeem the human race. “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church” (Col 1:24). He teaches us a crucial lesson for when we suffer on account of our faith — one that also is useful whenever we undergo any other type of physical, psychological, familial or moral suffering. To suffer with courage, we need, like St. Paul, to unite ourselves to Christ through that suffering so that in our weakness we may be strengthened by Christ to fight, to run and not only to keep the faith but to spread it through our example of faith under trial.

But this is obviously challenging and we can all be discouraged by the times that, rather than respond with courage, we’ve betrayed the Lord: we have stayed silent when others have uttered blasphemies; we’ve done nothing when we saw someone innocent being attacked or abused; we’ve minded our own business when we should have stopped as Good Samaritans to those who are hurting; we’ve allowed others to impose their immorality when we know Jesus has sent us out to be salt, light and leaven. If we haven’t been as courageous in the past as we know God is asking us to be, today’s feast is an important grace for us to see that and how the Lord gives us a second chance.

We see those lessons in one of the most important scenes in the life of St. Peter. We remember what happened with him during the Last Supper. After Jesus had said both, “Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me,” and, “Simon, Simon, behold Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed [for you, singular] that your own faith may not fail; and once you have turned back, you must strengthen your brothers,” Peter replied, “Even though all may have their faith in you shaken, mine will never be,” and “Even though I should have to die with you, I will not deny you.” But Jesus warned Peter about his bravado: “I tell you, Peter, before the cock crows this day, you will deny three times that you know me” (Mt 26; Lk 22). And we know that that’s exactly what happened. Three times in the high priest’s courtyard, Peter denied even knowing Jesus. He not only lied, but to some degree, he apostatized. He denied the Lord. He denied his faith: “I do not know the man!” The reason, as Jesus would say to him in the Garden of Gethsemane, was because the “spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Peter thought that he would give his life for the Lord. He certainly loved the Lord enough to die for him, but when the going got rough and he was confronted in the courtyard by a “waitress with an attitude” as Cardinal Sean O’Malley is accustomed to say, Peter lost his boldness because his flesh was cowardly. He didn’t even realize what he was doing until the cock crowed and the Lord, coming out through the courtyard in chains, looked at him. It was then that Peter went out and wept bitterly. But it’s important for to see that Jesus didn’t leave him there. As we hear in today’s Gospel, Jesus had made him, despite his human frailties, the rock on whom he was going to build his Church and Jesus needed to reconstitute him. And in the Gospel for the Vigil Mass of this Feast last night we see how. After the Resurrection, Jesus gives him a three-fold opportunity to profess his love. It’s a moving scene. Jesus asks Peter twice if he loves him with agape, a total self-sacrificial type of love. Peter responds both times saying that he loves Jesus with philia, as a friend. He couldn’t profess he would die for him because he was so ashamed and humiliated by the way his weak flesh had previously taken over. So Jesus lowers the question to asking whether Peter loved him as a friend, and Peter, saddened, replied that he knew the Lord knows everything and knows that he loves him. But Jesus wouldn’t leave him there in his sadness. He lifted him up with a prophecy, saying, “Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” St. John tells us that he was describing by the phrase “stretch out your hands” which was a Greek idiom for being crucified, how Peter would glorify God by his death. Jesus was indicating that in the end Peter would actually love the Lord with a total self-sacrificial type of love.

And that’s precisely how Peter would die, with great courage for the Lord. When he was being prepared for martyrdom among three to five thousand other Christians by Nero and his henchmen as scapegoats for the fire that destroyed Rome that Nero had set, there were three ways the Christians died, as a seven year-old witness, Tacitus, would later write in his Annals. They were covered with wild beast skins and torn to death by dogs. Others were covered with flammable liquid and lit on fire to serve as living lamps for the circus races at night. And the third group was crucified. Peter was one of those chosen to be crucified. But as he was preparing to be killed, he gave his executioners one last request: to crucify him upside down because he didn’t consider himself worthy to be crucified right-side up as Jesus had been 34 years earlier outside the city gates of Jerusalem. The sadistic executioners gladly assented because it would be a much more painful way to die. In crucifixion you die not because of the literally excruciating pain, but by asphyxiation. You can’t breathe. And when you flip somebody upside down, the diaphragm, essential for breathing, doesn’t function very well upside down. So for the last few hours of St. Peter’s life, he would have been suffering not only the pains of crucifixion — the most painful torture ever developed by the Romans — but also the equivalent of drowning at the same time. Before he had said that he would die for the Lord only to go out and deny him. This time, even though he was hesitant to say the same thing and promise that he loved the Lord enough to die, he actually died with incredible courage and devotion.

Peter wrote to the members of the early Church about courage in a letter that he sent out shortly before his death. “Although now for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials, it’s so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire, may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.… If you are patient when you suffer for doing what is good, this is a grace before God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps.” And that’s precisely what St. Peter did, following Jesus as someone else stretched out his arms in crucifixion and following him all the way home to heaven.

Like Saints Peter and Paul, like so many early disciples who lived their faith in times of persecution, Christians always need the virtue of courage. Jesus left us an example of suffering so that we will know how to suffer in union with him and so come to reign with him in glory. Sometimes the greatest way we spread the faith is by the witness that Jesus, who suffered for us, is worth suffering for in return, that he who died for us is worth living for and dying for as well. This is the witness still being given today by so many dauntless brothers and sisters throughout the world, including Missionaries of Charity.

Saints Peter and Paul, the early Christian martyrs, and Christian heroes in every age, have received their strength from the same Jesus whom we’re about to welcome on this altar. As we consume Jesus in Holy Communion, we consume his “guts,” his courage, his love for the Father, his love for others, and his love for the truth. He wants to fortify us, like he strengthened Saints Peter and Paul, so that we might be faithful and courageous all our days. Today from the altar he says to us, “Who do you say that I am?” and, together with Pope Leo and the whole Church, we confess him to be the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, and our Savior, now and in every circumstance.

The readings for today’s Mass were:

Reading I

Acts 12:1-11

In those days, King Herod laid hands upon some members of the Church to harm them.

He had James, the brother of John, killed by the sword,

and when he saw that this was pleasing to the Jews

he proceeded to arrest Peter also.

–It was the feast of Unleavened Bread.–

He had him taken into custody and put in prison

under the guard of four squads of four soldiers each.

He intended to bring him before the people after Passover.

Peter thus was being kept in prison,

but prayer by the Church was fervently being made

to God on his behalf.

On the very night before Herod was to bring him to trial,

Peter, secured by double chains,

was sleeping between two soldiers,

while outside the door guards kept watch on the prison.

Suddenly the angel of the Lord stood by him

and a light shone in the cell.

He tapped Peter on the side and awakened him, saying,

“Get up quickly.”

The chains fell from his wrists.

The angel said to him, “Put on your belt and your sandals.”

He did so.

Then he said to him, “Put on your cloak and follow me.”

So he followed him out,

not realizing that what was happening through the angel was real;

he thought he was seeing a vision.

They passed the first guard, then the second,

and came to the iron gate leading out to the city,

which opened for them by itself.

They emerged and made their way down an alley,

and suddenly the angel left him.

Then Peter recovered his senses and said,

“Now I know for certain

that the Lord sent his angel

and rescued me from the hand of Herod

and from all that the Jewish people had been expecting.”

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9

R. (5) The angel of the Lord will rescue those who fear him.

I will bless the LORD at all times;

his praise shall be ever in my mouth.

Let my soul glory in the LORD;

the lowly will hear me and be glad.

R. The angel of the Lord will rescue those who fear him.

Glorify the LORD with me,

let us together extol his name.

I sought the LORD, and he answered me

and delivered me from all my fears.

R. The angel of the Lord will rescue those who fear him.

Look to him that you may be radiant with joy,

and your faces may not blush with shame.

When the poor one called out, the LORD heard,

and from all his distress he saved him.

R. The angel of the Lord will rescue those who fear him.

The angel of the LORD encamps

around those who fear him, and delivers them.

Taste and see how good the LORD is;

blessed the man who takes refuge in him.

R. The angel of the Lord will rescue those who fear him.

Reading II

2 Timothy 4:6-8, 17-18

I, Paul, am already being poured out like a libation,

and the time of my departure is at hand.

I have competed well; I have finished the race;

I have kept the faith.

From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me,

which the Lord, the just judge,

will award to me on that day, and not only to me,

but to all who have longed for his appearance.

The Lord stood by me and gave me strength,

so that through me the proclamation might be completed

and all the Gentiles might hear it.

And I was rescued from the lion’s mouth.

The Lord will rescue me from every evil threat

and will bring me safe to his heavenly Kingdom.

To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Alleluia

Matthew 16:18

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church,

and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

Matthew 16:13-19

When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi

he asked his disciples,

“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah,

still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

Simon Peter said in reply,

“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.

For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.

And so I say to you, you are Peter,

and upon this rock I will build my Church,

and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.

I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven.

Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;

and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

The post Proclaiming Christ with Courage, Solemnity of SS. Peter and Paul, June 29, 2025 appeared first on Catholic Preaching.

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