St. Peter’s Chains
From The Liturgical Year
Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B.
Rome, making a god of the man who had subjugated her, consecrated the month of August to Caesar Augustus. When Christ had delivered her, she placed at the head of this same month, as a trophy of her regained liberty, the feast of the chains, wherewith, in order to break hers, Peter, the Vicar of Christ, had once been bound. O Divine Wisdom, who hast a better claim to reign over this month than had the adopted son of Caesar, thou couldst not have more authentically inaugurated thy empire. Strength and sweetness are the attributes of thy works, and it is in the weakness of thy chosen ones that thou triumphest over the powerful. Thou thyself, in order to give us life, didst swallow death; Simon, son of John, became a captive to set free the world entrusted to him. First, Herod, and then Nero showed him the cost of the promise he had once received: of binding and loosing on earth as in heaven. He had to share the love of the Supreme Shepherd, even to allowing himself, like him, to be bound with chains for the sake of the flock, and led where he would not.
Glorious chains! Never will ye make Peter's successors tremble any more than Peter himself; before the Herods and Neros and Caesars of all ages ye will be the guarantee of the liberty of souls. With what veneration have the Christian people honoured you, ever since the earliest times! One may truly say of the present feast that its origin is lost in the darkness of ages. According to ancient monuments, St. Peter himself first consecrated on this date the basilica on the highest of the seven hills, where the citizens of Rome are gathered today. The name Title of Eudoxia, by which the venerable Church is often designated, seems to have arisen from certain restorations made on occasion of the events mentioned in the Lessons. As to the sacred chains, which are its treasure, the earliest mention now extant of honour being paid to them occurs in the beginning of the second century. Balbina, daughter of the tribune Quirinus, keeper of the prisons, had been cured by touching the chains of the holy Pope Alexander; she could not cease kissing the hands which had healed her. " Find the chains of blessed Peter, and kiss them rather than these, said the Pontiff. Balbina, therefore, having fortunately found the Apostle's chains, lavished her pious veneration upon them, and afterwards gave them to the noble Theodora, sister of Hermea.
The irons which had bound the arms of the Doctor of the Gentiles, without being able to bind the word of God, were also, after his martyrdom, treasured more than jewels and gold. From Antioch, in Syria, St. John Chrysostom, thinking with holy envy of the lands enriched by these trophies of triumphant bondage, cried out in a sublime transport: " What more magnificent than these chains? Prisoner for Christ is a more beautiful name than that of an Apostle, an Evangelist, or Doctor. To be bound for Christ's sake is better than to dwell in the heavens; to sit upon the twelve thrones is not so great an honour. He that loves can understand me; but who can better understand these things than the holy choir of Apostles? As for me, if I were offered my "choice between these chains and the whole of " heaven, I should not hesitate ; for in them is happiness. Would that I were now in those places where it is said the chains of these admirable men are still kept! If it were given me to be set free from the care of this Church, and if I had a little health, I should not hesitate to undertake such a voyage only to see Paul's chains. If they said to me: Which wouldst thou prefer, to be the Angel who delivered Peter or Peter himself in chains? I " would rather be Peter, because of his chains."
Though always venerated in the great basilica which enshrines his tomb, St. Paul's chain has never been made, like those of St. Peter, the object of a special feast in the Church. This distinction was due to the pre-eminence of him who alone received the keys of the kingdom of heaven to communicate them to others," and who alone continues, in his successors, to bind and loose with sovereign power throughout the whole world. The collection of letters of St Gregory the Great proves how universally, in the sixth century, was spread the cultus of these holy chains, a few filings of which, enclosed in gold or silver keys, was the richest present the Sovereign Pontiffs were wont to offer to the principal churches, or to princes whom they wished to honour. Constantinople, at some period not clearly determined, received a portion of these precious chains; she appointed a feast on the 16th January, honouring on that day the Apostle Peter, as the occupant of the first See, the foundation of the faith, the immovable basis of dogma.
