Peoples, Nations and Tongues: The Church
Celebrating the Principal Basilicas
Rev 10: 8-11; Lk 19: 45-48
Celebrating the Basilicas of Sts. Peter and Paul, we are not celebrating merely the Church whose consecration we remember today, but the Churches built by these great Apostles - the Churches: the peoples, the nations, the tongues, the tribes, the continents, the cultures reached out to by these two pillars of the Church. The facade of the Basilica of St. Peter at the Vatican has this symbolic placement of the two gigantic statues of Peter on one side and Paul on the other - just to honour these two giants of apostolic zeal.
Today the Church, everywhere, is growing more and more small minded and less and less "catholic" (all-embracing). The call is clear, when there is small thinking, petty divisions, in fights and clamour for prominence, it is den of robbers, not really the Church intended by the Master or His great apostles Peter or Paul. Let us rise above every discrimination and grow to be all-embracing, truly catholic and radically apostolic.