We invite you to join us for Solemn Vespers in honor of the Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter on Thursday, February 22 at 7:00pm. As a Basilica, this feast day holds a special importance for our parish because of its connection with the successor of St. Peter, the Pope. This feast brings to mind the mission of teacher and pastor conferred by Christ on Peter in Scripture. “And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.” That succession has continued in an unbroken line down to the present Pope.

The “Chair” of St. Peter is not about an particular individual occupying the chair or about the physical chair itself in Rome, but about what the chair represents: the mission and ministry of the Pope as the Vicar of Christ. The pope, as successor of St. Peter, is to know who Christ is – “The Christ, the Son of the Living God!” It is this knowledge of Christ that is the foundation of his office, and in a symbolic sense, it is the pope’s relationship with the Lord that is the “chair” from which St. Peter and his successors guide and govern the Church.

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