{"id":82,"date":"2011-06-29T09:58:01","date_gmt":"2011-06-29T13:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bread_on_the_trail\/?p=82"},"modified":"2011-06-29T09:58:01","modified_gmt":"2011-06-29T13:58:01","slug":"saint-augustine-on-the-feast-of-peter-and-paul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/2011\/06\/saint-augustine-on-the-feast-of-peter-and-paul.html","title":{"rendered":"Saint Augustine on the Feast of Peter and Paul"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Martyrs Had Seen what they Proclaimed<\/strong><\/p>\n

This day has been consecrated for us by the martyrdom of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul. It is not some obscure martyrs we are talking about. Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. These martyrs had seen what they proclaimed, they pursued justice by confessing the truth, by dying for the truth.
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\nThe blessed Peter, the first of the Apostles, the ardent lover of Christ, who was found worthy to hear, And I say to you, that you are Peter. He himself, you see, had just said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Christ said to him, And I say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.<\/p>\n

Upon this rock I will build the faith you have just confessed. Upon your words, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God, I will build my Church; because you are Peter. Peter comes from petra, meaning a rock. Peter, \u201cRocky,\u201d from \u201crock\u201d; not \u201crock\u201d from \u201cRocky.\u201d Peter comes from the word for a rock in exactly the same way as the name Christian comes from Christ.
\n\u00a0
\nBefore his passion the Lord Jesus, as you know, chose those disciples of his whom he called apostles. Among these it was only Peter who almost everywhere was given the privilege of representing the whole Church. It was in the person of the whole Church, which he alone represented, that he was privileged to hear, To you will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven.<\/p>\n

After all, it is not just one man that received these keys, but the Church in its unity. So this is the reason for Peter\u2019s acknowledged pre-eminence, that he stood for the Church\u2019s universality and unity, when he was told, To you I am entrusting, what has in fact been entrusted to all. To show you that it is the Church which has received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, listen to what the Lord says in another place to all his apostles: Receive the Holy Spirit; and immediately afterwards, Whose sins you forgive, they will be forgiven them; whose sins you retain, they will be retained.
\n\u00a0
\nQuite rightly, too, did the Lord after his resurrection entrust his sheep to Peter to be fed. It is not, you see, that he alone among the disciples was fit to feed the Lord\u2019s sheep; but when Christ speaks to one man, unity is being commended to us. And he first speaks to Peter, because Peter is the first among the apostles.<\/p>\n

Do not be sad, Apostle. Answer once, answer again, answer a third time. Let confession conquer three times with love, because self-assurance was conquered three times by fear. What you had bound three times must be loosed three times. Loose through love what you had bound through fear. And for all that, the Lord once, and again, and a third time, entrusted his sheep to Peter.
\n\u00a0
\nThere is one day for the passion of two apostles. But these two also were as one; although they suffered on different days, they were as one. Peter went first, Paul followed. We are celebrating a feast day, consecrated for us by the blood of the apostles. Let us love their faith, their lives, their labours, their sufferings, their confession of faith, their preaching.<\/p>\n

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The Martyrs Had Seen what they Proclaimed This day has been consecrated for us by the martyrdom of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul. It is not some obscure martyrs we are talking about. Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. 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He is a widely recognized voice in the Catholic and broader Christian community. He is a member of the Clergy of the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia. In his fifteenth year of service as an ordained Catholic Deacon, he is currently assigned to St Stephen Martyr Parish in Chesapeake, Virginia. He is also authorized to serve the Liturgy of the Greek Byzantine Melkite Catholic Church. Deacon Fournier and his wife Laurine have been married for 34 years and have five grown children and six grandchildren. Deacon Fournier holds his Bachelors degree in theology and philosophy from the Franciscan University of Steubenville (BA), his Masters Degree in Marriage and Family Theology from the John Paul II Institute of the Lateran University (MTS), his Juris Doctor Law Degree Law (JD) from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and is a PhD candidate in Moral Theology at the Catholic University of America where he is currently writing his Doctoral Dissertation. Deacon Fournier also holds two honorary Doctorates, a Doctor of Laws (L.L.D. 1994,Honoris Causa) from St. Thomas University - Given for pro-life legal contributions, and a Doctor of Divinity Degree (D.D. 2005, Honoris Causa ) from the National Clergy Council and the Methodist Episcopal Church for his contributions to authentic ecumenical efforts toward Christian unity. Attorney Fournier is a constitutional lawyer who appeared as co-counsel in cases before the United States Supreme Court on Pro-Life, Religious Freedom and Pro-family issues. He served as the first Executive Director of the American Center for Law and Justice for seven years. He then served as a public policy activist for the causes of life, marriage and family issues for a number of years. He has extensive experience in nonprofit and for profit leadership. He has taught at the College level and served in Academic administration. He was a Dean of Students and the Dean of Evangelization at the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Steubenville, Ohio. Deacon Fournier is, above all, a communicator. His faith informs his passion to share the fullness of life which he has found in the heart of the Catholic Church. He has written eight books on matters of faith, family and the Christian life and is widely published in the broader Christian community on matters of life, faith, family, and cultural and social issues. He hosted two daily national radio programs, Purpose for Living, and Millennial Moment. He hosted several television series on Christian family and contemporary faith issues on EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network). He is actively involved in preaching and teaching in the Catholic Church and the broader Christian community. In addition to serving as the Editor in Chief of Catholic Online, Deacon Fournier is the John Paul II Fellow and special counsel for the National Pro-Life Center in Washington, D.C. and is the president of Third Millennium, LLC, a communications and consulting company. He views his role on Beliefnet as an opportunity to share his Catholic Christian faith in what he calls a new areopagus. The areopagus is referred to in the 17th Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles in the Christian New Testament. Also called Mars Hill it was there where the Apostle Paul shared the Christian faith with the early Greeks in their temple.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/author\/deaconfournier"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions\/86"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}