The Feast of Saint Peter, kept on the twenty-ninth of June, honours the apostle who stood at the hinge of the Gospel narratives and became the foremost leader of the earliest Church. Simon, son of Jonah, was a fisherman of Galilee whom Andrew brought to Jesus; our Lord looked at him and said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas — which is to say, Peter, the Rock. The name given at that first meeting was itself a calling and a promise.

At Caesarea Philippi, when our Lord asked who the disciples said he was, it was Peter who gave the answer on which everything else depends: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And upon that confession, our Lord declared: Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. The Keys of the Kingdom were given to Peter — not as private possession but as the office of apostolic proclamation and pastoral governance that he was to exercise for the whole flock.

The appointed Epistle from Acts 12 recounts Peter's miraculous deliverance from Herod's prison: an angel striking off his chains, leading him past sleeping guards and through gates that opened of their own accord into the city. The Collect prays that what Peter embodied — faithful preaching, earnest feeding of the flock — may characterise all who hold pastoral office in the Church. The appointed Gospel from Matthew 16 gives the great confession itself: Peter's declaration is not merely a biographical detail but the foundation of all the Church's teaching and mission.