Saint Peter the Apostle
Fisherman who became 1 of the 12 Apostles of Jesus
Born in Bethsaida, Syria in the Roman Empire
Birth name Simon, son of John, brother of the Apostle Andrew
1st Bishop of Rome in AD 30
Martyred in Rome (crucified upside down) c 64
Tomb under St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican
Feast of the Chair of St Peter - 22nd February
Feast of the Holy Apostles Saints Peter & Paul - 29th June
Pope Benedict XVI gave three catecheses on Saint Peter:
1) Peter the fisherman 
2) Peter the Apostle
3) Peter the Rock
and then a fourth on
The Chair of St Peter, gift of Christ to His Church
Saint Peter, the Fisherman
Catechesis by Papa Benedict XVI (1 of 3)
Wednesday General Audience, 17 May 2006 - in Croatian, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese & Spanish
"Dear Brothers and Sisters,
In the new series of catecheses we have sought first of all to better understand what the Church is, what the Lord's idea is about this his new family. Then we have said that the Church exists in people. And we have seen that the Lord has entrusted this new reality, the Church, to the Twelve Apostles. Now we want to see them one by one, so as to understand through people what it means to live the Church, what it means to follow Jesus. We begin with Saint Peter.
After Jesus, Peter is the character most known and cited in the New Testament writings: he is mentioned 154 times with the nickname of Pétros, "stone", "rock", which is the Greek translation of the Aramaic name given to him directly by Jesus: Cephas, attested to 9 times above all in Paul's Letters; then must be added the name Simon used frequently (75 times), which is the Greek form of his original Hebrew name Symeon (2 times: Acts 15, 14; 2 Pt 1, 1). Son of John (cf Jn 1, 42) or, in the Aramaic form, Bar-Jona, son of Jona (cf Mt 16, 17), Simon was from Bethsaida (cf Jn 1, 44), a small town to the east of the Sea of Galilee, from where Philip also came and naturally Andrew, the brother of Simon. He spoke with a Galilean accent. He too, like his brother, was a fisherman: with the family of Zebedee, the father of James and John, he ran a small fishing business on the Lake of Gennesaret (cf Lk 5, 10). He must therefore have enjoyed a certain economic comfort and was motivated by a sincere religious interest, by a desire for God - he wanted God to intervene in the world - a desire that impelled him to go with his brother all the way to Judea to follow the preaching of John the Baptist (Jn 1, 35-42).
He was a believing, practising Jew, trustful of the active presence of God in the history of his people, and grieved not to see God's powerful action in the events of which he was, at the time, a witness. He was married and his mother-in-law, healed one day by Jesus, lived in the city of Capernaum, in the house in which Simon also stayed when he was in that city (cf Mt 8, 14s; Mk 1, 29ss; Lk 4, 38s). Recent archaeological excavations have brought to light, under the octagonal mosaic paving of a small Byzantine church, traces of a more ancient church built in that house, as graffiti with invocations to Peter testify. The Gospels inform us that Peter was among the first four disciples of the Nazarene (cf Lk 5, 1-11), to whom a fifth was added, according to the custom of every Rabbi to have five disciples (cf Lk 5, 27; call of Levi). When Jesus went from five to twelve disciples (cf Lk 9, 1-6), the newness of his mission was clear: He was not one of the many rabbis, but came to gather together the eschatological Israel, symbolized by the number twelve, which was that of the tribes of Israel.
Simon appears in the Gospels with a decisive and impulsive character: he is ready to assert his own reasons, even with force (think of him using the sword in the Garden of Olives). At the same time, he is also at times ingenuous and fearful, and yet honest, all the way to the most sincere repentance (cf Mt 26, 75). The Gospels enable us to follow his spiritual journey step by step. The starting point is the call by Jesus. It happened on an ordinary day, while Peter was busy with his work as a fisherman. Jesus was by the Lake of Gennesaret and a crowd had gathered around him to listen to him. The number of listeners created a certain discomfort. The Teacher saw two boats moored by the shore; the fishermen had disembarked and were washing their nets. So he asked to board the boat which was Simon's and requested him to put out from the shore. Sitting on that improvised seat, Jesus began to teach the crowds from the boat (cf Lk 5, 1-3). And thus the boat of Peter becomes the chair of Jesus. When he finished speaking, he said to Simon: "Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch". Simon replied, "Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; but at your word I will let down the nets" (Lk 5, 4-5). Jesus, who was a carpenter, was not an expert fisherman: yet Simon the fisherman trusted this Rabbi, who did not give him answers but called him to have trust. Simon's reaction to the miraculous catch is that of astonishment and trepidation: "Lord, depart from me who am a sinner" (Lk 5, 8). Jesus responds by inviting him to trust and to be open to a project that surpasses all his expectations. "Do not be afraid; henceforth, you will be a fisher of men" (Lk 5, 10). Peter could not yet imagine that one day he would arrive in Rome and that here he would be the "fisher of men" for the Lord. He accepted this surprising call, letting himself be involved in this great adventure: he was generous, he recognized his limits, but he believed in the one who was calling him and followed the dream of his heart. He said "yes" - a courageous and generous "yes" - and became a disciple of Jesus.
Peter lived another significant moment on his spiritual pathway near Caesarea Philippi, when Jesus put a precise question to the disciples: "Who do people say that I am?" (Mk 8, 27). For Jesus however the response of hearsay was not enough. From those who had accepted to be personally involved with Him he wanted an outlet for their personal position. Therefore, he pressed on: "And who do you say that I am?" (Mk 8, 29). And Peter responded on behalf of the others: "You are the Christ" (ibid), that is, the Messiah. This response by Peter, which did not come from his "flesh and blood", but was given to him by the Father who is in heaven (cf Mt 16, 17), bears in it as in a seed the future confession of faith of the Church. However, Peter had not yet understood the profound content of Jesus' messianic mission, the new meaning of this word: Messiah. He shows this a little later, by inferring that the Messiah whom he was following in his dreams is very different from the true project of God. In front of the announcement of the Passion, he was scandalized and protested, prompting a lively reaction from Jesus (cf Mk 8, 32-33). Peter wanted a "divine man" as Messiah, who would fulfill the expectations of the people by imposing on everyone his power: it is also our desire that the Lord impose his power and immediately transform the world. Jesus presents himself as the "human God", the servant of God, who upsets the expectations of the crowd by taking a pathway of humility and suffering. It is the great either-or, that we too must always learn anew: to favour our own expectations by rejecting Jesus, or to welcome Jesus in the truth of his mission and to put aside our too human expectations. Peter - impulsive as he was - did not hesitate to take Jesus aside and reproach him. Jesus' response made all his false expectations collapse, calling him to conversion and to follow him: "Get behind me, satan! Because you are not thinking according to God, but according to men" (Mk 8, 33). It is not for you to show me the road, I take my own road and you should follow me.
Peter thus learnt what it means to truly follow Jesus. It is his second call, analogous to the call of Abraham in Genesis 22, after that of Genesis 12: "If any man wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. Because whoever wants to save his life, will lose it; but whoever loses his own life for my sake and that of the Gospel, will save it" (Mk 8, 34-35). It is the demanding law of following Christ: the need to know how to renounce, if necessary, the whole world so as to save true values, to save one's soul, to save the presence of God in the world (cf Mk 8, 36-37). Even if with difficulty, Peter welcomes the invitation and continues his pathway in the footsteps of the Master.
And it seems to me that these different conversions of St Peter and his whole figure are a great consolation and a great lesson for us. We too have a desire for God, we too want to be generous, but we too expect God to be strong in the world and to immediately transform the world according to our ideas, according to the needs that we see. God chooses a different road. God chooses the way of transformation of hearts in suffering and in humility. And we, like Peter, must always convert anew. We must follow Jesus and not precede him: it is He who shows us the way. Thus Peter tells us: You think you have the recipe and must transform Christianity, but it is the Lord who knows the road. It is the Lord who says to me, who says to you: follow me! And we must have the courage and humility to follow Jesus, because He is the Way, the Truth and the Life."
Peter, the Apostle
Catechesis by Papa Benedict XVI (2 of 3)
Wednesday General Audience, 24 May 2006 - in Croatian, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese & Spanish
Dear brothers and sisters,
In these catecheses, we are meditating on the Church. We said that the Church lives in people and therefore in last week's catechesis we began to meditate on the characters of the individual Apostles, beginning with St Peter. We examined two decisive stages of his life: the call [to follow Jesus] near the Sea of Galilee, and then the confession of faith: "You are Christ, the Messiah". It is a confession, we said, that is still lacking, initial and yet open. St Peter puts himself on a path of "sequela", following. And so, this initial confession carries within it, like a seed, the future faith of the Church. Today, we want to consider another two important events in the life of St Peter: the multiplication of the loaves - we heard the Lord's question and St Peter's reply in the Gospel passage just read - and then the Lord who calls Peter to be Pastor of the universal Church.
Let us now begin with the multiplication of the loaves. You know that the people had been listening to the Lord for hours. At the end, Jesus says: They are tired and hungry, we must give these people something to eat. The Apostles ask: But how? And Andrew, Peter's brother, draws Jesus' attention to a boy who had with him five loaves of bread and two fish. But what is this for so many people, the Apostles ask. The Lord has the crowd be seated and these five loaves and two fish distributed. And the hunger of everyone is satisfied; what is more, the Lord gives the Apostles - Peter among them - the duty to collect the abundant leftovers: 12 baskets of bread. Afterwards, the people, seeing this miracle - that seemed to be the much-awaited renewal of a new "manna", of the gift of bread from heaven -, wanted to make him king. But Jesus does not accept and withdraws into the hills by himself to pray. The following day, on the other side of the lake in the Synagogue of Capernaum, Jesus explained the miracle - not in the sense of a kingship over Israel with a worldly power in the way the crowds hoped, but in the sense of the gift of self: "The bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh" (Jn 6, 51). Jesus announces the Cross and with the Cross the true multiplication of the loaves, the Eucharistic bread - his absolutely new way of kingship, a way completely contrary to the expectations of the people.
We can understand that these words of the Master, who does not want to multiply bread every day, who does not want to offer Israel a worldly power, would be really difficult, indeed, unacceptable, for the people. "He gives his flesh": what does this mean? Even for the disciples what Jesus says in this moment seems unacceptable. It was and is for our heart, for our mentality, a "hard saying" which is a trial of faith. Many of the disciples went away. They wanted someone who would truly renew the State of Israel, of his people, and not one who said: "I give my flesh". We can imagine that the words of Jesus were difficult for Peter too, who at Caesarea Philippi he protested at the prophesy of the Cross. However, when Jesus asked the Twelve: "Will you also go away?", Peter reacted with the enthusiasm of his generous heart, guided by the Holy Spirit. Speaking on everyone's behalf, he answered with immortal words, which are also our words: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God."
Here, like at Caesarea, Peter begins with his words the confession of the Church's Christological faith and becomes spokesman also for the other Apostles, and of we believers of all times. This does not mean that he had already understood the mystery of Christ in all its depth; his faith was still at the beginning of a journey of faith. It would reach its true fullness only through the experience of the Paschal events. Nonetheless, it was already faith, open to the greatest reality; open especially because it was not faith in something, it was faith in Someone: in him, Christ. And so, our faith too is always an initial one and we have still to carry out a great journey. But it is essential that it is an open faith and that we allow ourselves to be led by Jesus, because he does not only know the Way, but he is the Way.
Peter's rash generosity does not protect him, however, from the risks connected with human weakness. Moreover, it is what we too can recognize in our own lives. Peter followed Jesus with enthusiasm, he overcame the trial of faith, abandoning himself to Christ. The moment comes, however, when he gives in to fear and falls: he betrays the Master. The school of faith is not a triumphal march but a journey marked daily by suffering and love, trials and faithfulness. Peter, who promised absolute fidelity, knew the bitterness and humiliation of denial: the arrogant man learns the costly lesson of humility. Peter, too, must learn that he is weak and in need of forgiveness. Once his attitude changes and he understands the truth of his weak heart of a believing sinner, he weeps in a fit of liberating repentance. After this weeping he is finally ready for his mission.
On a spring morning, this mission will be entrusted to him by the Risen Christ. The encounter takes place on the shore of the Lake of Tiberias. John the Evangelist recounts the conversation between Jesus and Peter in that circumstance. There is a very significant play on words. In Greek, the word "fileo" means the love of friendship, tender but not all-encompassing; instead, the word "agapao" means love without reserve, total and unconditional. Jesus asks Peter the first time: "Simon... do you love me (agapas-me)" with this total and unconditional love (Jn 21, 15)? Prior to the experience of betrayal, the Apostle certainly would have said: "I love you (agapo-se) unconditionally". Now that he has known the bitter sadness of infidelity, the drama of his own weakness, he says with humility: "Lord; you know that I love you (filo-se)", that is, "I love you with my poor human love". Christ insists: "Simon, do you love me with this total love that I want?". And Peter repeats the response of his humble human love: "Kyrie, filo-se", "Lord, I love you as I am able to love you". The third time Jesus only says to Simon: "Fileis-me?", "Do you love me?". Simon understands that his poor love is enough for Jesus, it is the only one of which he is capable, nonetheless he is grieved that the Lord spoke to him in this way. He thus replies: "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you (filo-se)". This is to say that Jesus has put himself on the level of Peter, rather than Peter on Jesus' level! It is exactly this divine conformity that gives hope to the Disciple, who experienced the pain of infidelity. From here is born the trust that makes him able to follow [Christ] to the end: "This he said to show by what death he was to glorify God. And after this he said to him, "Follow me'" (Jn 21: 19).
From that day, Peter "followed" the Master with the precise awareness of his own fragility; but this understanding did not discourage him. Indeed, he knew that he could count on the presence of the Risen One beside him. From the naïve enthusiasm of initial acceptance, passing though the sorrowful experience of denial and the weeping of conversion, Peter succeeded in entrusting himself to that Jesus who adapted himself to his poor capacity of love. And in this way he shows us the way, notwithstanding all of our weakness. We know that Jesus adapts himself to this weakness of ours. We follow him with our poor capacity to love and we know that Jesus is good and he accepts us. It was a long journey for Peter that made him a trustworthy witness, "rock" of the Church, because he was constantly open to the action of the Spirit of Jesus. Peter qualifies himself as a "witness of the sufferings of Christ as well as a partaker in the glory that is to be revealed" (I Pt 5: 1). When he was to write these words he would already be elderly, heading towards the end of his life that will be sealed with martyrdom. He will then be ready to describe true joy and to indicate where it can be drawn from: the source is believing in and loving Christ with our weak but sincere faith, notwithstanding our fragility. He would therefore write to the Christians of his community, and says also to us: "Without having seen him you love him; though you do not now see him you believe in him and rejoice with unutterable and exalted joy. As the outcome of your faith you obtain the salvation of your souls" (I Pt 1, 8-9).
Peter, the rock on which Christ founded the Church
Catechesis by Papa Benedict XVI (3 of 3)
Wednesday General Audience, 7 June 2006 - in Croatian, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese & Spanish
"Dear brothers and sisters,
In recounting Jesus' first meeting with Simon, the brother of Andrew, John the Evangelist records a unique event: Jesus "looked at him and said, "So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas (which means Peter)'" (Jn 1, 42). It was not Jesus' practice to change his disciples' names: apart from the nickname "sons of thunder", which in specific circumstances he attributed to the sons of Zebedee and never used again. He never gave any of his disciples a new name. Yet, he gave one to Simon, calling him "Cephas". This name was later translated into Greek as Petros and into Latin as Petrus. And it was translated precisely because it was not only a name; it was a "mandate" that Petrus received in that way from the Lord. The new name Petrus was to recur frequently in the Gospels and ended by replacing "Simon", his original name.
This fact acquires special importance if one bears in mind that in the Old Testament, a change of name usually preceded the entrustment of a mission. Indeed, many signs indicate Christ's desire to give Peter special prominence within the apostolic College: in Capernaum the Teacher enters Peter's house (Mk 1, 29); when the crowd becomes pressed on the shore of Lake Genesaret, seeing two boats moored there, Jesus chooses Simon's (Lk 5, 3); when, on certain occasions, Jesus takes only three disciples with him, Peter is always recorded as the first of the group: as in the raising of Jairus' daughter, in the Transfiguration and during the agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. And again: the Temple tax collectors address Peter and the Teacher pays only for himself and Peter; it is Peter's feet that he washes first at the Last Supper, and for Peter alone he prays that his faith will not fail so that he will be able to strengthen the other disciples in faith.
Moreover, Peter himself was aware of his special position: he often also spoke on behalf of the others, asking for the explanation of a difficult parable (Mt 15, 15), the exact meaning of a precept (Mt 18, 18) or the formal promise of a reward (Mt 19, 27). It is Peter in particular who resolves certain embarrassing situations by intervening on behalf of all. Thus, when Jesus, saddened by the misunderstanding of the crowd after the Bread of Life discourse, asks: "Will you also go away?", Peter's answer is peremptory in tone: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." Equally decisive is the profession of faith which, again on behalf of the Twelve, he makes near Caesarea Philippi. To Jesus' question: "But who do you say that I am?", Peter answers: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Mt 16, 15-16). Jesus responded by pronouncing the solemn declaration that defines Peter's role in the Church once and for all: "And I tell you: you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church... I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven" (Mt 16, 18-19). In themselves, the three metaphors that Jesus uses are crystal clear: Peter will be the foundation of rock on which he will build the edifice of the Church; he will have the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven to open or close it to people as he sees fit; lastly, he will be able to bind or to loose, in the sense of establishing or prohibiting whatever he deems necessary for the life of the Church. It is always Christ's Church, not Peter's. Thus, vivid images portray what the subsequent reflection will describe by the term: "primacy of jurisdiction".
This pre-eminent position that Jesus wanted to bestow upon Peter is also encountered after the Resurrection: Jesus charges the women to announce it especially to Peter, as distinct from the other Apostles; it is to Peter and John that Mary Magdalene runs to tell them that the stone has been rolled away from the entrance to the tomb, and John was to stand back to let Peter enter first when they arrived at the empty tomb. Then, Peter was to be the first witness of an appearance of the Risen One. His role, decisively emphasized, marks the continuity between the pre-eminence he had in the group of the Apostles and the pre-eminence he would continue to have in the community born with the paschal events, as the Book of Acts testifies. His behaviour was considered so decisive that it prompted remarks as well as criticism. At the so-called Council of Jerusalem Peter played a directive role, and precisely because he was a witness of authentic faith, Paul himself recognized that he had a certain quality of "leadership". Moreover, the fact that several of the key texts that refer to Peter can be traced back to the context of the Last Supper, during which Christ conferred upon Peter the ministry of strengthening his brethren, shows that the ministry entrusted to Peter was one of the constitutive elements of the Church, which was born from the commemoration of the Pasch celebrated in the Eucharist.
This contextualization of the Primacy of Peter at the Last Supper, at the moment of the Institution of the Eucharist, the Lord's Pasch, also points to the ultimate meaning of this Primacy: Peter must be the custodian of communion with Christ for all time. He must guide people to communion with Christ; he must ensure that the net does not break, and consequently that universal communion endures. Only together can we be with Christ, who is Lord of all. Thus, Peter is responsible for guaranteeing communion with Christ with the love of Christ, guiding people to fulfil this love in everyday life. Let us pray that the Primacy of Peter, entrusted to poor human beings, will always be exercised in this original sense as the Lord desired, and that its true meaning will therefore always be recognized by the brethren who are not yet in full communion with us."