Post #6466

Its history and its veneration begins in the meanders of the Christian cemeteries of the city in the III century. The Chair was later venerated in the Baptistery of St. Damasus in the Vatican. It is now preserved in the apse of the Vatican Basilica, enclosed in the great Berninian reliquary, so that not even the Pope can sit there, as the Supreme Pontiffs used to do until the XVI century. Under the name of Natale Petri de Cathedra was celebrated a feast on February 22; but, because of Lent, the churches of Gaul took the habit of celebrating it the 18th of January. The two costumes developed in a parallel way; then, finally, the primitive unity of their meaning was lost and there were two feasts of the Chair of St. Peter, the first attributed to Rome - that of January 18 -, the second attributed to another chair - ultimately to that of Antioch - on February 22. The Roman Church, until the sixteenth century, only celebrated this last feast. Since the Gentiles, doing worthy penance, had taken the place of the Jews, Antioch replaced Jerusalem and St. Peter resided there, before establishing his Chair in Rome. To St. Peter who proclaimed Jesus "the Christ, Son of the living God" (Evangelium) while all Palestine rose up against him, the divine Master entrusted the power to absolve from sins, to close the gates of hell and open those of heaven to us. (Idem). And the Head of the Holy Church teaches us in His First Epistle that "with faith in the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit sanctifies us and reconciles us with the Father". Furthermore, in this Holy Mass the commemoration of St. Paul the Apostle is made, immediately after the prayer of the feast, so that the liturgy does not separate those who were rightly called the two columns of the Holy Church. Today let us honor the Head of the Holy Church, who continues on earth the redemptive work of our Lord Jesus Christ and let us ask him to free us from the bonds of sin.