On June 29, Rome celebrates the feast day of its patron saints, St. Peter and Paul. Each year, the Vatican dresses in splendor to commemorate this solemnity.
In his homily, Pope Leo spoke about the lives of these apostles, considered the founders of the Church in Rome and martyred during the reign of Emperor Nero.
The Pope emphasized that each of them embraced the faith and lived out their apostolic mission in a different way, but always with a spirit of brotherhood.
POPE LEO XIV
The story of Peter and Paul teaches us that the communion to which the Lord calls us is a harmony of voices and faces; it does not cancel out the freedom of each person. Our patron saints followed different paths, held different views, and at times even confronted and debated each other with evangelical frankness. Yet this did not stop them from living the concordia apostolorum—that is, a living communion in the Spirit, a fruitful harmony in diversity.
Speaking of these saints, Pope Leo XIV praised their willingness to embrace change and seek new paths. He noted that sometimes we fall into routine or repeat the same pastoral patterns time and time again.
To keep the relationship with God alive, Pope Leo repeated the question Jesus asked his disciples: “But who do you say that I am?”
POPE LEO XIV
If we do not want our Christianity to be reduced to a heritage of the past—as Pope Francis has so often warned—it is important to escape the danger of a tired and static faith, and instead ask ourselves: Who is Jesus Christ for us today? What place does He hold in our lives and in the mission of the Church? How can we bear witness to this hope in daily life and proclaim it to those we encounter?
During the Mass, Pope Leo conferred the pallium on 54 new metropolitan archbishops, including two cardinals: the Archbishop of Johannesburg and the Archbishop of Washington.
Also present at the celebration was a delegation from the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
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Trans. CRT
