The complete homily of Pope Francis, at the Mass of the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul 2024, this Saturday, June 29.
Below is the homily of the Holy Father :
Let us look at the two Apostles Peter and Paul: the fisherman from Galilee whom Jesus made a fisher of men; the Pharisee, persecutor of the Church, transformed by Grace into an evangelizer of the nations. In the light of the Word of God, let us be inspired by their story, by the apostolic zeal that marked the path of their lives. In meeting the Lord, they lived a true Easter experience: they were set free and the doors of a new life opened before them.
Brothers and sisters, on the eve of the Jubilee Year, let us pause precisely on the image of the door. The Jubilee, in fact, will be a time of grace in which we will open the Holy Door, so that everyone can cross the threshold of that living sanctuary that is Jesus and, in Him, experience the love of God that strengthens hope and renews joy. And in the story of Peter and Paul too there are doors that open.
The first reading tells us the story of Peter’s release from prison. This account contains many images that remind us of the experience of the Passover: the episode takes place during the Feast of Unleavened Bread; Herod evokes the figure of the Pharaoh of Egypt; the release occurs at night as for the Israelites; the angel gives Peter the same instructions that were given to Israel: get up quickly, put on his girded belt, and put on his sandals (cf. Acts 12:8; Ex 12:11). What is being told to us, then, is a new exodus. God frees his Church, frees his people who are in chains, and once again shows himself to be the God of mercy who supports their path.
And on that night of liberation, first the prison doors miraculously open; Then, of Peter and the angel accompanying him, it is said that they found themselves before “the iron gate that leads to the city; the gate opened of itself before them” (Acts 12:10). They are not the ones who open the door, it opens on its own. It is God who opens the doors, it is He who liberates and paves the way. To Peter, as we have heard in the Gospel, Jesus had entrusted the keys to the Kingdom; But he experiences that the one who opens the doors is the Lord first, He always precedes us. And a curious fact is: the doors of the prison were opened by the strength of the Lord, but Peter will later have difficulty entering the house of the Christian community: whoever goes to the door thinks he is a ghost and does not open it ( cf. Acts 12:12-17). How many times do communities not learn this wisdom of opening the doors!
The journey of the Apostle Paul is also first and foremost a paschal experience. In fact, he was first transformed by the Risen One on the road to Damascus and then, in the continual contemplation of the Crucified Christ, he discovered the grace of weakness: when we are weak – he says – it is then that we are actually strong, because we no longer cling to ourselves, but to Christ (cf. 2 Cor 12:10). Seized by the Lord and crucified with Him, Paul writes: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20). But the end of all this is not an intimate and comforting religiosity – as some movements in the Church present to us today: a salon spirituality –; on the contrary, the encounter with the Lord ignites in Paul’s life a zeal for evangelization. As we heard in the second Reading, at the end of his life he declared: “The Lord stood by me and strengthened me so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it” (2 Tim 4:17).
In describing how the Lord had given him so many opportunities to proclaim the Gospel, Paul uses the image of open doors. Thus, of his arrival in Antioch with Barnabas, it is said that “when they arrived, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles” (Acts 14:27). In the same way, addressing the community in Corinth he says: “A great and prosperous door has been opened to me” (1 Cor 16:9); and writing to the Colossians he exhorts them thus: “Pray also for us, that God may open to us the door of the word of God, that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ” (Col 4:3).
Brothers and sisters, the two Apostles, Peter and Paul, had this experience of grace. They touched with their hands the work of God, who opened the doors of their inner prison and also of the royal prisons where they were imprisoned for the sake of the Gospel. And, moreover, he opened before them the doors of evangelization, so that they might experience the joy of meeting the brothers and sisters of the nascent communities and be able to bring the hope of the Gospel to everyone.
And this year we are also preparing to open the Holy Door.
Brothers and sisters, today the Metropolitan Archbishops appointed in the last year receive the Palio. In communion with Peter and following the example of Christ, door of the sheep (cf. Jn 10:7), they are called to be zealous shepherds, who open the doors of the Gospel and who, with their ministry, contribute to building a Church and an open door society.
And I would like to offer my warm and fraternal greeting to the Delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate: thank you for having come to express the common desire for full communion between our Churches. I send a cordial and heartfelt greeting to my brother, my dear brother Bartholomew.
Saints Peter and Paul help us open the door of our lives to the Lord Jesus, intercede for us, for the city of Rome and for the entire world. Amen.