Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul

In honor of this liturgical celebration, here are some cool Holy Land pictures that have to do with St. Peter.

This is a picture of me touching the Sea of Galilee.  This was a wonderful site to visit on the trip. It was amazing to think of all of the life that happened on that Sea, beyond the Biblical stories.  I remember being flooded with images of St. Peter.  That Sea and its shores are truly the place of his conversion.  They are the place where he worked, lived, got it very wrong, got it more right than he could have ever imagined, and where he first began to learn to love our Lord.

This is St. Peter's house in Capernaum. This is where the first domestic church began.  The whole village of Capernaum was a really cool experience. You could still see where the houses and roads of the first century village were. You could also see the foundation of the Synagogue where Jesus prayed and visited (upon which sit the remains of a 4th century Byzantine Synagogue).  Being here, I could almost sense the hustle and bustle of life back then - not its busy-ness, but its liveliness.

This is what the locals call "St. Peter's fish."  It is the kind of fish that Peter would have caught, and that Jesus would have prepared on the sea shore after His resurrection. I ate it for lunch on the Mt. of the Beatitudes (overlooking the Sea of Galilee). For those of you who need proof of that statement, enjoy the following pictures...

It was good.  In fact, it almost tasted like chicken...you know, once I got past the whole "my lunch is looking at me" thing.

This is inside the Church of Peter's denial of Jesus.  I love this portrayal because in the same image it shows the moment of St. Peter's most obvious rejection of our Lord and the honor that God bestowed on him.  It captures the complex nuances of St. Peter with which people today can so easily identify.

Following along the same lines as the bottom portion of the previous picture, this is the Church of the Primacy of Peter.

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On this Solemnity, may our hearts grow in love of our Lord and His Church. May all Christians be united under the primacy of the Church He instituted, and may we all find the eternal rest and happiness that Sts. Peter and Paul rejoice in now.

Sts. Peter and Paul, pray for us.