The Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul

Today's feast or solemnity, of Saints Peter and Paul, is ancient, according to Dom Prosper Gueranger:

After the great solemnities of the movable cycle, and the Feast of St. John the Baptist, none is more ancient, nor more universal in the Church, than that of the two Princes of the Apostles. From the beginning, Rome celebrated their triumph on the very day itself which saw them go up from earth to heaven, June 29th. Her practice prevailed, at a very early date, over the custom of several other countries, which put the Apostles’ feast towards the close of December. It was, no doubt, a fair thought which inspired the placing of these Fathers of the Christian people in the cortège of Emmanuel at his entry into this world. But, as we have already seen, today’s teachings have intrinsically an important preponderance in the economy of Christian dogma; they are the completion of the whole Work of the Son of God; the cross of Peter fixes the Church in her stability, and marks out for the Divine spirit the immutable center of his operations. Rome, therefore, was well inspired when, leaving to the Beloved Disciple the honor of presiding over his brethren at the Crib of the Infant God, she maintained the solemn memory of the Princes of the Apostles upon the day chosen by God himself to consummate their labors and to crown, at once, both their life and the whole cycle of mysteries.

But the celebration of the feast/solemnity has changed through the years. According to the Calendar of the Roman Missal of 1962, the Missal and Calendar Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI chose in his 2007 Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum, the feast was preceded by a Vigil, then emphasized St. Peter on the actual feast day, and then followed up with a Commemoration of St. Paul, which included another commemoration of St. Peter--so St. Peter the Apostle, Bishop of Antioch and First Bishop and Pope in Rome was the primary focus of this feast/solemnity.

In The Church's Year of Grace, Pius Parsch asks his readers to imagine themselves at "an ancient Roman vigil" gathered "at the grave of Peter the Rock"; they "intend to remain throughout the night". He emphasizes that St. Peter is alive to them and urges us "to keep the feast, like the ancient Church" (p. 212, volume 4)

The Vigil of the Apostles Saints Peter and Paul, on June 28, according to my copy of Roman Missal of 1962, "records the powers given by Jesus Christ to SS. Peter and Paul, the two foundation pillars of the Church", and the priest wears Violet vestments; the Gloria is not chanted or recited; the Epistle is from Acts 3:1-10 and the Gospel from John 21:15-19. On June 29, the "lessons and prayers of this Mass describe how his Lord and Master Jesus Christ prepared the fervent Apostle, St. Peter, for the supreme office of the Papacy." The Epistle is from Acts 12:1-11 and the Gospel from Matthew 16:13-19. On June 30, the Commemoration of St. Paul, Apostle includes the Epistle from Galatians 1:11-20 and the Gospel from Matthew 10:16-22. The feast even had its own breviary hymn, "Decora lux æternitatis, auream".

On the current calendar for the Novus Ordo of the Latin Rite, the Solemnity has a Vigil Mass with the same readings as above, plus Galatians 1:11-20, and on the actual feast day the first reading and Gospel are the same as the 1962 Missal, with the addition of the Second Reading from the second letter of St. Paul to Timothy (4:6-8; 17-18). 

Pope Francis will bless the pallia to be conferred on new Metropolitan Archbishops today at St. Peter's during Mass, although the archbishops won't be there to receive them. It is a Holy Day of Obligation in England today, and was in 1962 also. It is not a Holy Day of Obligation in the United States of America, however, and was not in 1962 either. Before Pope Pius XII revised the General Roman Calendar in 1955, this feast was celebrated with an Octave, and had been for centuries.

So when St. Thomas More wrote to his daughter Meg on July 5, 1535, hoping that his execution would be scheduled for the next day, July 6, he speaks of two martyrs' feasts (not mentioning St. Paul):

I cumber you, good Margaret, much, but I would be sorry, if it should be any longer than tomorrow, for it is Saint Thomas' Even and the Utes [Octave] of Saint Peter and therefore tomorrow long I to go to God, it were a day very meet and convenient for me.

The Even of St. Thomas was the the vigil of the feast of the Translation of the Relics of St. Thomas of Canterbury. 

Just as the execution of St. John Fisher was liturgically inconvenient for Henry VIII (either on the feast of St. Alban, the first English Martyr or on the vigil or the feast of the Birth of St. John the Baptist, another great feast celebrated with a vigil), so was St. Thomas More's. It was during the Octave of St. Peter, the first Pope and Vicar of Christ whose successor Henry VIII had displaced in England and on the Vigil of the feast of the Translation of St. Thomas a Becket's bones, which Henry would soon have dug up and his shrine destroyed. The amateur theologian Henry VIII, who'd just celebrated his birthday on June 28, would have known the significance of these dates.

But to St. Thomas More it was a "very meet and convenient" day to "go to God"--more on More next week!

Image Credit (public domain): Jésus-Christ ressuscité entouré de saint Pierre, saint Paul et deux anges by Anthonis Mor