November 18

Dedication of the Basilicas of Saints Peter and Paul

Optional memorial

Honours Rome's churches built over the graves of the apostles Peter and Paul

Each year on 18 November, Catholics remember the consecration of two great churches in Rome: St Peter's Basilica on the Vatican Hill and the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls, on the road to Ostia. An ancient tradition holds that Peter and Paul were put to death in Rome under Emperor Nero in the 60s, and that these churches stand over their graves.

Around the year 200, a Roman Christian named Gaius wrote that he could show visitors the “trophies” of the apostles at these two places, and digs under St Peter's in the 1940s found a small second-century shrine. In the 300s, Emperor Constantine built the first basilicas there. Both were later rebuilt: the new St Peter's was consecrated by Pope Urban VIII on 18 November 1626, and St Paul's, gutted by fire in 1823, was consecrated again by Pius IX in 1854.

The feast is less about stone than about roots: a faith handed on by apostles who gave their lives for Christ.

Therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone. In Him the whole building is fitted together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

Ephesians 2:19–21 · BSB

A prayer

Faithful God, you built your Church on the witness of the apostles Peter and Paul, who preached your Son and gave their lives for him. Keep us rooted in the faith they handed on, and make us living stones in your house, joined together in Christ, our cornerstone. Amen.