Why was peter canonized

Peter made Rome the home of the worldwide Church. Together, Saint Peter and Saint Paul, our greatest missionary, were so important to the growth of our Church that we honor them with a joint feast day on June 29th. They both died as martyrs for their belief in Christ.

The Church has another celebration each year to honor these spiritual brothers. A basilica is a great church dedicated to the memory of an important person or event. Tradition tells us that the basilicas honoring Saint Peter and Saint Paul were originally built over the places where they were martyred by order of the Roman Emperor Nero around the year This double feast is celebrated on November People believe that it belonged to St. It is a tradition for every pope and bishop since Peter to have a special chair in their cathedral church.

From this chair, the bishop preaches and leads his people in celebrations. Each year, the Church honors this tradition by celebrating the feast of the Chair of Saint Peter on February It is a sign of our unity as Catholics. Together, we gather around our pope as pastor of the entire Church. The Lord asks the same of each of us.

Like Peter, we can use our strengths to continue his work of bringing love and peace to others. We can pray that Jesus will help us to overcome our weaknesses so that we can serve him every day.

Jesus can and will work through us, as he did with Simon Peter, the Rock of the Church. Meanwhile, Peter struggled with this new language and mastered it, making the difficult adjustment to life with whalers, traders, and warring natives. Despite little apparent success and severe want, he maintained a serene and gentle spirit, plus endless patience and courage. A few natives had been baptized, a few more were being instructed.

Father Chanel was clubbed to death. Within two years after his death, the whole island became Catholic and has remained so. Peter Chanel is the first martyr of Oceania and its patron. Suffering for Christ means suffering because we are like Christ. Very often the opposition we meet is the result of our own selfishness or imprudence.