June 29: The Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul

The Collect of the Day

Saint Peter and Saint Paul

Almighty God, whose blessed apostles Peter and Paul glorified you by their martyrdom: Grant that your Church, instructed by their teaching and example, and knit together in unity by your Spirit, may ever stand firm upon the one foundation, which is Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Saint Peter and Saint Paul

Almighty God, whose blessed apostles Peter and Paul glorified thee by their martyrdom: Grant that thy church, instructed by their teaching and example, and knit together in unity by thy Spirit, may ever stand firm upon the one foundation, which is Jesus Christ our Lord; who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Ezekiel 34:11-16 or Ezekiel 34:11–16
Psalm 87
2 Timothy 4:1-8 or 2 Timothy 4:1–8
John 21:15-19 or John 21:15–19

Peter and Paul, the two greatest leaders of the early church, are also commemorated separately, Peter on January 18th, for his confessionof Jesus as the Messiah, and Paul on January 25th, for his conversion, but they are commemorated together on June 29th in observance of the tradition of the church that they both died as martyrs in Rome during the persecution under Nero in 64.

Paul, the well-educated and cosmopolitan Jew of the diaspora,and Peter, the uneducated fisherman from Galilee, had differencesof opinion in the early years of the church concerning the missionto the Gentiles. More than once, Paul speaks of rebuking Peter forhis continued insistence on Jewish exclusiveness; yet their common commitment to Christ and the proclamation of the Gospel proved stronger than their differences; and both eventually carried that mission to Rome, where they were martyred. According to tradition, Paul was granted the right of a Roman citizen to be beheaded by a sword, but Peter suffered the fate of his Lord, crucifixion, although with his head downward.

A generation after their martyrdom, Clement of Rome, writing tothe church in Corinth, probably in the year 96, wrote: “Let us come to those who have most recently proved champions; let us take up the noble examples of our own generation. Because of jealousy and envy the greatest and most upright pillars of the church were persecuted and competed unto death. Let us bring before our eyes the good apostles—Peter, who because of unrighteous jealousy endured not one or two, but numerous trials, and so bore a martyr’s witness and went to the glorious place that he deserved. Because of jealousy and strife Paul pointed the way to the reward of endurance; seven times he was imprisoned, he was exiled, he was stoned, he was a preacher in both East and West, and won renown for his faith, teaching uprightness to the whole world, and reaching the farthest limit of the West, and bearing a martyr’s witness before the rulers, he passed out of the world and was taken up into the holy place, having proved a very great example of endurance.”

Lessons and Psalm

First Lesson

Psalm

¹On the holy mountain stands the city he has founded; *the Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.

²Glorious things are spoken of you, *O city of our God.

³I count Egypt and Babylon among those who know me; *behold Philistia, Tyre, and Ethiopia: in Zion were they born.

⁴Of Zion it shall be said, “Everyone was born in her, *and the Most High himself shall sustain her.”

⁵The Lord will record as he enrolls the peoples, *“These also were born there.”

⁶The singers and the dancers will say, *“All my fresh springs are in you.”

Epistle

Gospel

¹¹For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. ¹²As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. ¹³I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. ¹⁴I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. ¹⁵I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. ¹⁶I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.