ST. PETER-IN-CHAINS

A MESSAGE FOR THE FEAST OF ST. PETER-IN-CHAINS

With the death of St. James the Greater, whose feast we celebrated last Tuesday, the despotic Jewish king Herod Agrippa decided that killing Christ’s apostles was an effective method of increasing his popularity.  He thus had St. Peter arrested and thrown into prison.  As the people prayed continuously for his release, the day for his execution drew near.  Then, one night, there appeared to St. Peter an angel from God, who smote him on the side and told him to arise and follow him.  As St. Peter’s chains fell from him, he was able to pass unseen into freedom through the midst of the soldiers who had been appointed to guard him.

The chains that bound St. Peter that night were later presented to the wife of the Emperor Theodosius, who sent them to her daughter Eudoxia in Rome.  She in turn brought them to the Pope, who in turn showed her another chain with which the Emperor Nero had bound St. Peter before his execution.  As he compared the two chains, they became entangled so as to miraculously form a single chain.   The Pope gave the chain to Eudoxia, who displayed it for the veneration of the faithful in her church on the Esquiline Hill.  Already dedicated to St. Peter, her church became known as St. Peter ad Vincula, and a feast was instituted on August 1^st in commemoration of the miracle.

The feastday of St. Peter-in-Chains is of particular importance to us in these days when the papacy itself seems to be chained in the fetters of modernism.  Like the people who prayed without ceasing for the release of St. Peter, it is now our turn to pray for the “freedom and exaltation of Holy Mother Church,” built on Peter.    We must remember that it was to this same holy Peter the Apostle that our Lord gave the keys of the kingdom, declaring to him that “whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  Since Vatican II, the Church seems to have bound herself, gladly surrendering her keys to the devil and the world.  As more and more of the Church’s faithful fall into apostasy and lose their souls, we, the remnant Catholics who still hang on to the true faith and holy Mass of the apostles must realize that the power of the Keys of Peter now rest in our poor hands.  Let us use those keys, so mysteriously contained in the chains of our Rosary, to unlock the fetters that bind our Holy Mother Church, and pray without ceasing for her restoration.

                                                                        

Prayer of Restoration

Almighty and Everlasting God, / we beseech thee to restore unto this world of sin / that faith which St. Peter / thy first Pope and Prince of the Apostles / did once humbly confess; / and commit once more, / through thine infinite mercy, / the government of thy Church / unto a worthy Vicar of thy Son; / that he may be bestowed / with such increase of all virtues / as may be pleasing in thy sight; / and that being so adorned, / he may lift from the Church and from all nations / the heavy weight of heresy / that presseth down upon us; / and rendering Christendom once more acceptable in thy sight, / may bring at length all nations / to render due homage at the feet of their divine King, / even Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, / who liveth and reigneth with thee, / in the unity of the Holy Ghost, / ever one God, / world without end.  / Amen.