CAPG's Blog 

The Chair of St. Peter

"A day in memory of St. Peter's fixing his episcopal see at Antioch; where, as St. Luke informs us, the followers of Christ were first called Christians. It was just that the prince of the apostles should take this city under his particular care and inspection, which was then the capital of the East, and in which the faith took so early and deep root. St. Chrysostom says that St. Peter made a long stay at Antioch. St. Gregory the Great, that he was seven years bishop of that Church. St. Leo says that we ought to celebrate the chair of St. Peter with no less joy than the day of his martyrdom, for as in this he was exalted to a throne of glory in heaven, so by the former he was installed head of the Church on earth.

On this festival, adore and thank the divine goodness for the establishment and propagation of his Church; and earnestly pray that in his mercy he would preserve the same and extend it, that his name may be glorified by all nations and by all hearts to the boundaries of the earth. The Church of Christ is his spiritual kingdom. He not only founded it, but continues to govern it, and by his spirit to animate its members to the end of the world as its visible head; though he has left St. Peter and his successors as a visible head for its exterior government.

Give thanks on this day for the propagation of the gospel among the Gentiles; and pray that it may be still more and more enlarged, for the enlightening all those who sit in darkness, and know not God. Pray in particular for the people of the East. Pray for all the prelates in Christ's Church, that as they succeed the apostles, they may be animated with an apostolic spirit in renouncing the world and its ways, and applying themselves wholly to the good of their flock. Pray that none may be admitted to that dignity, but such as are truly qualified for the charge, and called by God, as the apostles were. Pray likewise for the peace and unity of the Church, for the remedying all abuses, and that there may be one pastor and one fold." The Catholic Year by Rev. Fr. John Gother

“The office divinely committed to Us of feeding the Lord’s flock has especially this duty assigned to it by Christ, namely, to guard with the greatest vigilance the deposit of the faith delivered to the saints, rejecting the profane novelties of words and oppositions of knowledge falsely so called. There has never been a time when this watchfulness of the supreme pastor was not necessary to the Catholic body; for, owing to the efforts of the enemy of the human race, there have never been lacking ‘men speaking perverse things’ (Acts xx. 30), ‘vain talkers and seducers’ (Tit. i. 10), ‘erring and driving into error’ (2 Tim. iii. 13). Still, it must be confessed that the number of the enemies of the cross of Christ has in these last days increased exceedingly, who are striving, by arts entirely new and full of subtlety, to destroy the vital energy of the Church, and, if they can, to overthrow utterly Christ’s kingdom itself. Wherefore, We may no longer be silent, lest We should seem to fail in Our most sacred duty, and lest the kindness that, in the hope of wiser counsels, We have hitherto shown them, should be attributed to forgetfulness of Our office.“ -- Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, 1907