Feast 29 June
The rock. The keys. The fisherman who denied and then fed the sheep.
Sacred art
The portrait kept with St. Peter the Apostle is the image this library has of Peter. The honour goes to the person, and through the person to God. It is not a machine, and it is not a substitute for the life written below.
Simon son of Jonah. Crucified in Rome, tradition says upside down. Every later pope is measured against this man.
If it belongs to Peter, it is here, with a door back into the story.
Sea of Galileec. AD 31
At night, in a contrary wind, Jesus comes to the boat walking on the sea. It is a theophany: the one who treads the waves is the Lord of creation.
A high mountain (traditionally Tabor)c. AD 32
Peter, James, and John see Jesus’ face shine like the sun, Moses and Elijah speaking with him, a bright cloud, and the Father’s voice. A glimpse of glory before the cross.
Jerusalemc. AD 33
On the third day Jesus rose from the dead. This is not one Catholic miracle among others. It is the reason there is a Church, a Gospel, or any later sign worth hearing.
Jerusalemc. AD 33
Fifty days after Easter, the Spirit falls on the gathered disciples with wind and fire. They preach, and a divided world hears the one Gospel in many tongues.
Road to Damascusc. AD 34
A persecutor of the Church is thrown down by a light and a voice: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” The risen Jesus makes an apostle out of an enemy.
Bolsena, then Orvieto1263
A Bohemian priest, doubting the Real Presence, sees the Host bleed onto the corporal. Urban IV, then at Orvieto, is shown the linen — and Corpus Christi enters the calendar of the whole Church.
Manoppello, AbruzzoDocumented in Manoppello from 1506; claimed older
A translucent cloth in a Capuchin church, visible from both sides, bearing a living face that some identify with the Veil of Veronica or the burial face-cloth (sudarium). Benedict XVI visited it in 2006. No decree of authenticity.
St. Peter’s Basilica, VaticanDied 1689; body in St. Peter’s
The pope of the relief of Vienna, an ascetic in a baroque court. When the tomb was opened the body was found unusually preserved. He is beatified, and rests in St. Peter’s.
St. Peter’s Basilica, VaticanDied 1914; exhumed 1944
The pope of frequent Communion and of Pascendi. Exhumed in 1944, the body was found in a remarkable state of preservation. He lies under an altar in the Presentation chapel, the face a silver mask.
Cova da Iria, Fátima1917
In 1917, in a hollow of pasture called the Cova da Iria, near the village of Fátima in Portugal, three shepherd children — Lúcia dos Santos, ten, and her cousins Francisco Marto, nine, and Jacinta Marto, seven — saw a lady brighter than the sun, six times, on the 13th of the month from May to October. She asked for the rosary every day, for the conversion of sinners, for devotion to her Immaculate Heart, and that a chapel be built. On 13 July she showed them hell and spoke of war and of Russia. On 13 October, before a crowd of tens of thousands standing in the rain, including reporters who had come to mock, the sun appeared to dance. Francisco and Jacinta died in the influenza. Lúcia lived until 2005 as a nun. The bishop of Leiria declared the apparitions worthy of belief on 13 October 1930.
Milan; buried at AssisiDied 2006; canonized 2025
A teenager who coded a website of Eucharistic miracles, went to Mass daily, and died of leukemia at fifteen. The first millennial saint — and the reason many people first learned that Lanciano and Bolsena exist.
