QUO VADIS?

 A MESSAGE FOR THE 5TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

There is a story told of St. Peter that you will not find in Holy Scripture.  And yet it is a tale told from the earliest ages of the Church and which has endured to the present day.  It describes how a fearful St. Peter, now bishop of the newly founded Church of Rome, sought to evade the terrible persecution of the Emperor Nero.  Four years of unparalleled violence had passed since Nero had pinned the blame for the Great Fire of Rome on the Christians.  His forces were coming closer to discovering the whereabouts of the leader of these Christians, and thus, poor St. Peter felt fear in his heart.

He must have been thinking of the ferocious lions of the Colloseum who daily devoured his Christian flock by the hundreds, when he wrote his famous words in his Epistle, “Brethren, be sober, be vigilant, for your adversary the devil goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”  This adversary, in the form of the Roman soldiers, was now on the prowl for him, and Peter did not want to be devoured.

And so he fled the City of Rome, heading southeast on the Via Appia.  Oral tradition describes how, no sooner had he walked a half-mile outside the city gates than he meets our blessed Lord heading in the opposite direction towards Rome.  He addresses to him the following words “Domine quo vadis?” (Lord, whither goest thou?).  And the Lord replies “Venio Romam iterum crucifigi.” (I am coming to Rome to be crucified again.).  Peter, aware of the rebuke, turns back to face his destiny and Jesus disappears but, in disappearing, he leaves the impressions of his footprints on the road.  A church was built on this spot, and as evidence of the incident, there is a stone within the church that bears the imprints of our Lord’s holy feet.

St. Peter returns to Rome, is arrested, and on June 29 in the year 67 AD, is crucified like his Master.  Ashamed of his act of cowardice in fleeing the city, he felt himself unworthy to be put to death in the same way as our Lord, and asked his executioners that he be crucified upside-down, a request that was readily granted.  We commemorate his glorious martyrdom, along with that of his co-apostle, St. Paul, on Tuesday of this week.  Let us seek to emulate St. Peter, not in fleeing martyrdom but in embracing it, not in merely accepting our cross, but in recognizing our own unworthiness to follow Christ by carrying it.  And may St. Peter protect his Church by providing us with worthy shepherds who will not only defend, but feed their sheep!