5th Sunday of Easter, Cycle A (2026)

In our second reading, Peter declares: “You are ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises’ of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light”. Much of the letter, from which this come, seems to speak to those who are newly baptized, and so it’s fitting for us to hear in this Season of Easter.

When I think of Peter, I can’t help but recall being on pilgrimage in Rome. Possibly the most powerful moment for me was standing before the tomb of St. Peter—I wasn’t expecting it to move my heart like that. In that suspended moment, I thought about his life: the Galilean fisherman, called to become a fisher of men; the one Jesus identified as leader; the one who had moments of divine insight, recognizing who Jesus truly is; the one who was prone to bad judgment and putting his foot in his mouth.

I thought about his final encounter with the resurrected Jesus, how Jesus asked him three times, “Do you love me?” , and then told him to feed his lambs and to follow (John 21). I thought of how Peter was transformed after the great Pentecost event, with newfound authority and courage, he boldly proclaimed the Good News about Jesus. Jesus had selected him to be the Prince of Apostles, and he was finally living up to it.

The 4^th century historian Eusebius tells us that Peter left home, and became the first bishop of Antioch, before eventually going further west, where he would serve as Rome’s first bishop.

Early Church historians tell us that Peter was arrested and faced execution in the middle of Nero’s circus on Vatican Hill, just outside of the walls of ancient Rome. There was an obelisk in the circus that would have been visible to him as he hung upside down. That obelisk stands today in the middle of St. Peter’s Square.

Peter was buried very close by, in a simple grave. It would be a little over 250 years later that the emperor, Constantine, would build a basilica on that same hill. Then about 1200 later, the current St. Peter’s Basilica was constructed. Archeologists have confirmed that Peter’s tomb and remains lie only ten feet directly below the main altar of the basilica.

On that pilgrimage, I paused there at his tomb, thinking of all he had gone through, all that brought him to that place. And I thought of how he did it all through Jesus and for Jesus.

It’s this same Peter who we hear from in today’s second reading, written while in Rome, and sent to Christians living in what is today northern Turkey. It was a time when Christianity was still rather new, but growing rapidly. And as it was growing, it began to register on the radar of the powers that be: both in the Roman Empire at large, but also in its local provinces within. There began to be a backlash against the Christians.

As a result, these newly baptized Christians, teeming with energy and enthusiasm in their new life in Christ, quickly became discouraged and confused. He wrote this letter to give courage just as Jesus had encouraged him.

Peter explained in this letter that the struggles and suffering that come with being Christian follow the pattern of the struggles and suffering faced by Jesus himself. “Beloved: Come to him (Jesus), a living stone, rejected by human beings but chosen and precious in the sight of God, and, like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house….through Jesus Christ….(the) cornerstone, chosen and precious”.

But even more, Peter is saying that we Christians are stones that form a building with Jesus as the cornerstone. It means that together, we are formed into something; that one does not live life as a Christian in isolation. Honestly, there’s not much you can do with a single stone.

And if we’re called together to form something beautiful for God, we realize that sum is only as good as its parts. A building is only as solid as the materials from which it is made. Yes, we are stones, but throughout our lives, like Peter himself, we are to be hewn and cut and chiseled, refined. And that happens when we place ourselves in the hands of the architect, as Peter himself eventually did.

Each of us could ask: How am I building up the spiritual house? Some of us haven’t figured out how to contribute to or build up the community of faith. Perhaps some of us haven’t given it any thought.

But also, each of us is called to be refined into something greater than we currently are—to be smoothed, refined. Some of us believe that’s the work of everyone else except ourselves. Some of us put it off. And some of us are too distracted to even give it any thought.

God desires to create something new through you and it begins with you acknowledging what it demands of you, and allowing it. What is it for you?