The Feast Day of St. Peter is ~ June 29th
“Simon son of Jonah” (Mt 16:17a) was a native of Bethsaida on the shore of Galilee. Married and settled at Capernaum, together with his brother Andrew he earned his living “fishing”, until the Lord called him from being a “fisherman”, (and a disciple of John the Baptist) to “become a fisher of men” (Lk 5:9). Thenceforth, he was christened kepha, (Aramaic for “rock”, Petra or Petrus in Latin), and when he later declared his faith in Jesus as “the Christ”, the son of the Living God”. (Mt 16:16), our Lord spontaneously declared him “Blessed” (Mt 16:17a), stating unequivocally; “upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of 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” (Mt. 16:18-19). The use of the familiar jewish juridical term such as “to bind” and “to loose” clearly denote Peter’s supreme position of governing judge and arbiter as ordained by Jesus.
After the Resurrection, Peter was among the first to whom the Lord appeared; it is he who presided over the election of Matthias (Acts 1:15-20), preached the first public sermon at Pentecost (Acts 2:14-40), addressed the Sanhedrin (Acts 4:5-22) received the first Jewish (Acts 2:41) and later first pagan converts (Acts 10:44-48) into the church; he performed the first public miracle (Acts 3:1-11), and spoke the decisive word at the first Council of the Church.
Reflection: “Jesus wants us to live in us! Our being, so to say, has to disappear, that is, our thoughts have to disappear so that his thoughts may become ours. Our desires and feelings have to disappear because Jesus wants to replace them with his and implant his heart in us. Our entire will has to disappear, all our evil tendencies, all our actions that are too human, because Jesus wants to put his will in us” (Blessed James Alberione)