Day 6 - San Pietro in Vincoli (St Peter in Chains)

In AD 42-44, Herod Agrippa I began a persecution of the Christians at Jerusalem. It was during this time of trial that Herod ordered the death of James the apostle, who was beheaded. (James was the brother of John, and the son of Zebedee - Jesus had called James and John, the Sons of Thunder). During this same persecution, Peter was imprisoned. Peter, not long before this, had returned from a missionary journey in which he restored a man paralyzed from a stroke to full health, had raised a woman from the dead (Dorcas or Tabitha) , and had been instrumental in the conversion of the first Gentile family (that of Cornelius at Caesaria Maritima). Now he lay in prison, chained to Roman guards, because Herod felt it wise to postpone his execution until the Jewish Passover was finished.

Acts 12:5

Peter was therefore kept in prison, but constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church.

6 And when Herod was about to bring him out, that night Peter was sleeping, bound with two chains between two soldiers; and the guards before the door were keeping the prison.

7 Now behold, an angel of the Lord stood by him, and a light shone in the prison; and he struck Peter on the side and raised him up, saying, “Arise quickly!” And his chains fell off his hands.

The Liberation of St Peter, by Raphael

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ALiberazione_di_san_pietro_03.jpg

8 Then the angel said to him, “Gird yourself and tie on your sandals”; and so he did. And he said to him, “Put on your garment and follow me."

9 So he went out and followed him, and did not know that what was done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision.

10 When they were past the first and the second guard posts, they came to the iron gate that leads to the city, which opened to them of its own accord; and they went out and went down one street, and immediately the angel departed from him.

11 And when Peter had come to himself, he said, “Now I know for certain that the Lord has sent His angel, and has delivered me from the hand of Herod.

The Story of the Chains

In 439, the Empress Eudocia, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where she was given the very chain which bound Peter during his imprisonment, by the Bishop of Jerusalem. It was originally sent to Constantinople and later to Rome, where the western emperor gave it to Pope Leo the Great (440-461). When Pope Leo compared this chain to another chain that had bound St Peter while imprisoned in Rome just prior to his death, they miraculously fused together into one unbreakable series of links. In a memorial of this event, in 442, the Basilica of Saint Peter in Chains was built and dedicated to St Peter. The 2 fused chains are displayed there.

San Pietro in Vincoli - Façade

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASan_pietro_in_vincoli%2C_esterno.JPG I, Sailko [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Reliquary containing the chains of St. Peter

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ARoma_san_pietro_in_vincoli_catene.jpg

The number of links in Peter’s chains corresponds to the number of days remaining from this day until Easter, when “Judah’s lion burst his chains and crushed the serpent’s head.,” This line begins the second verse of one of the hymns appointed for today, written around AD1000, by Fulbert of Chartres.

In the Gospel passage for today, Jesus says, “I was in prison and you visited me (Matt 25: 36)”

San Pietro in Vincoli - Interior

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASPIV_small-2.jpg By SPIV_small.jpg: Philippos derivative work: Rabanus Flavus (This file was derived from: SPIV_small.jpg) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

The ceiling shows Peter, no longer in chains, but in Glory.

Ceiling - San Pietro in Vincoli http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASan_Pietro_in_Vincoli_-_ceiling%2C_Rome_retouched.jpg By San_Pietro_in_Vincoli_-_ceiling,_Rome.jpg: Maros M r a z (Maros) derivative work: Alberto Fernandez Fernandez (San_Pietro_in_Vincoli_-_ceiling,_Rome.jpg) [CC BY 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Apse and High Altar

Note the lighted reliquary underneath the altar, where the fused chains are displayed.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AS._Pietro_in_Vincoli_010.JPG

Apse

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AS._Pietro_in_Vincoli_012.JPG

The raised tribune and high altar

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASan_Pietro_in_Vincoli_-_Interior%2C_Rome_3.jpg

Below: Baldacchino of the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli

https://commons.wikimedia. org/wiki/File%3AFile-San_Pietro_in_Vincoli_ Rome_2011_10.jpg

The Basilica of St Peter in Chains is renowned for the great statue of Moses that is housed there. It was created by Michelangelo, as a part of the tomb of Julius II, commissioned by that Pope himself. It is the central figure of the larger wall of the tomb. Leah and Rachel flank Moses.

Above: Michelangelo's Moses statue

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMoses_San_Pietro_in_Vincoli.jpg Michelangelo Buonarroti [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Below: The Tomb of Julius II

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A'Moses'_by_Michelangelo_JBU010.jpg

Michelangelo's (or his assistants') Rachel is on the left, and Leah is on the right of Moses. The upper statues are definitely not by Michelangelo.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A'Moses'_by_Michelangelo_JBU010.jpg

Left: Organ of the Basilica of Peter in Chains or San Pietro in Vincoli

https://commons.wikimedia. org/wiki/File%3A San_Pietro_in_Vincoli_Rome_2011_8.jpg

Also in the Basilica of St Peter in Chains is a mosaic of Saint Sebastian which allows us to add another friend to the growing cloud of witnesses accompanying us on our journey. The mosaic was placed there as the result of St Sebastian's intercessory prayers, which were responsible for halting a plague.

Mosaic of St Sebastian

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AS._Pietro_in_Vincoli_017.JPG By Georges Jansoone (JoJan) (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Saint Sebastian was a captain of the Praetorian Guard under the Emperors Diocletian and Maximian in the late 3rd century, and as such, was in a position to share the Gospel with many people in high places. His witness and teaching were responsible for many conversions. Diocletian had been unaware that Sebastian was a Christian, but it soon became obvious due to the number of conversions.

Diocletian reproached Sebastian for what to him seemed betrayal and treason, and commanded him to be bound to a stake in the middle of a field, for archers to shoot with arrows. The idea was to shoot very carefully so as to avoid vital organs which would have caused a rapid death. Rather, he was to be shot full of arrows and then left to die a slow, painful, and shameful death for everyone to see, much as Our Lord was sentenced to die a very public and shameful death. Sebastian saw this as a great honor. The Golden Legend tells us that "the archers shot him as full of arrows as an urchin,” but, miraculously, the arrows did not kill him. The widow, Irene of Rome, retrieved his body to bury it, and discovered him still barely alive. She brought him to her home and nursed him back to health. Soon afterward he was responsible for several miraculous healings.

Above: St Irene tending St Sebastian's wounds

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASan_Sebasti%C3%A1n_y_ Santa_Irene_(Llu%C3%ADs_Bonif%C3%A0s%2C_MRABASF_E-33)_01.jpg Luis García [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Later, after he was healed, Sebastian stood on a step by a main road in the city and harangued Diocletian as he passed by, for his ill treatment of Christians. In response, the emperor ordered Sebastian beaten to death, and had his body thrown into the Cloaca Maxima, or great sewer of Rome. (We have been there. Remember, it was by the Church of St Giorgio in Velabro) But in an apparition, Sebastian revealed to a Christian widow where she could find his body, and he asked that it be buried "at the catacombs near the apostles." And so, Sebastian came to be known as the saint who was martyred twice.

St Sebastian Thrown into the Cloaca Maxima by Lodovico Carracci (a very rare subject in art)

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ALodovico_Carracci_(Italian_-_St._Sebastian_Thrown_into_the_Cloaca_Maxima_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

The collect church for St Peter in Chains is Santi Cosma e Damiano in Via Sacra (The Church of Sts Comas and Damian on the Sacred Way) in the Roman Forum. It was once the pagan Temple of Romulus. Again, the Church reclaims the old, the ruined, the neglected, and turns them to the glory of the Lord. This will be the station church for Thursday, the Third Week of Lent.

Please welcome to the pilgrimage, St Peter, the Prophet Moses, St Irene and St Sebastian — our newest friends on our journey to Calvary with Our Lord. How we love them and cherish their work in the Lord's Kingdom, to reclaim this fallen world for Christ!

Tomorrow we will call on St Anastasia, another of the saints of the Roman Canon of the Mass.

Optional activities, videos, music, etc.

From our Eastern Catholic Brothers and Sisters, here is an example of Byzantine chant for the first week of Lent. For them this is called "Clean Monday"

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