You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 16:18-19, inscribed in Latin on the frieze inside St. Peter’s Church)

We do not know how our parish came to be named for St. Peter. But he is an apt patron of the first Catholic church on Capitol Hill – the first one called to be a disciple of Jesus, the first among the apostles, the first pope. As he was the “rock” on which Christ built his church, so he has been, for 200 years, the spiritual foundation of our beloved St. Peter’s Church.

What we know of Peter comes from the New Testament. Called Simon, the son of a man named John, he lived in Capernaum, on the Sea of Galilee, where he worked as a fisherman with his brother Andrew. We are told that Jesus cured Peter’s mother-in-law, so we can assume he was married. He was with Jesus throughout His public ministry.

In the Gospels, St. Peter is portrayed as an enthusiastic, even impetuous, follower of Jesus. He is also remembered, each year in the reading of the Passion, for an all-too-human failing. Waiting outside as Jesus is tried before the Sandhedrin, Peter is asked if he is one of His followers, and he says no: “I do not know the man.” Almost instantly he realizes what he has done and begins to weep.

His remorse did not derail him. In the Acts of the Apostles, he is shown as the one among the apostles who spoke to the crowds at Pentecost. With St. Paul, he led the disciples in spreading the new Christian faith to much of the known world. Scripture does not say how Peter died, but tradition holds that he was a martyr, crucified in Rome around 67 A.D.

St. Peter is memorialized in various ways in the architecture of our church. Outside, above the doorways, are relief carvings that show Jesus calling Simon Peter to be His disciple (left doorway), Jesus handing him the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven (center), and Peter preaching the Word of God (right). On the east face of the bell tower, a stone sculpture of St. Peter stands watch. Inside, he appears in a stained-glass window above the main altar.

Over two millennia, he has been one of the greatest Christian saints; over two centuries, the patron of our parish. On the occasion of our Bicentennial, St. Peter, pray for us.