Whit Monday 2021 (EF) - St. Peter in Chains

We celebrate the second day of the Pentecost Octave, called in some places Whit Monday—named after the white garments of the newly baptized. Like the Easter Octave, the Pentecost Octave is aimed at welcoming and praying for the newly baptized, and in earlier days, the newly initiated would wear their new white baptismal garments throughout this Octave as well.

In Rome, the newly baptized would visit a different station church each day of this Octave, and they would receive post-baptismal lessons. The Roman station Church today is the Church of St. Peter in Chains, which I remember visiting a number of years ago. 

Walking into that Church, one almost forgets you are there to pay homage to the chains that held the apostle Peter while he was imprisoned in Jerusalem, because right near the entrance is  Michelangelo’s breathtaking statue of Moses—carved from a single massive block of marble. Moses is the gargantuan figure, with rippling muscles,  grasping the tablet of the law, almost holding back from the righteous reaction of seeing the Israelites worshipping the Golden Calf. 

But then the visitor to St. Peter in Chains makes their way, finally, to the reliquary of the chains. St. Peter was imprisoned by those very chains not long after his speech in today’s epistle from the Acts of the Apostles. Imagine, being newly baptized and contemplating those chains. Peter stood in the streets of Jerusalem, and filled with the Holy Spirit, preached the Gospel, for which he was arrested and imprisoned. But those chains—the chains of man—failed at stopping the Gospel from being preached.

The newly baptized were basically being told: this is your destiny too. You now have a share in the mission of the Gospel, you too, now have the holy spirit filling your soul, you too are being charged with preaching the gospel fearlessly, and like Peter, you too may be arrested and imprisoned, but fear not, the chains of man cannot really hold you, the chains of man cannot stop the mission of the Church.

What shall we preach? The newly baptized might think to themselves. Preach the words of today’s Gospel, just like Peter, just like Christians have done for two thousand years: “God so loved the world, as to give His only-begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but may have life everlasting”

Though we are not newly baptized, we contemplate the feebleness of those earthly chains compared to the power of the Holy Spirit, which impels us into the world, to preach the saving Gospel of God’s love for the glory of God and salvation of souls.