🇻🇦Pope St. Melchiades, also known as Miltiades, governed the Church during a crucial transitional period, from 311 to 314. Born in Africa, his pontificate witnessed the end of the great persecution of Diocletian and the beginning of the Constantinian peace, formalized by the Edict of Milan in 313. It was under his papacy that the Church, for the first time, received legal recognition and protection from the Roman Empire. He received the Lateran Palace from Constantine, which became the papal residence and the site of the first Constantinian basilica, the Basilica of St. John Lateran. Although he was not executed, he is venerated as a martyr due to the great sufferings he endured for the faith during the persecutions that preceded his pontificate. One of his main actions was to preside over the Lateran Synod in 313, which condemned the Donatist heresy, a schism that threatened the unity of the Church in North Africa. With wisdom and firmness, he defended true doctrine and ecclesial communion, consolidating the authority of the See of Rome in a time of profound social and religious transformations. He died in 314.
📖Epistle (1 Pt 5:1-4, 10-11)
Beloved: The elders who are among you, I exhort, I who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that is to be revealed. Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, taking care of it, not by constraint but willingly, according to God; not for filthy lucre, but with a ready mind; not as domineering over the elect, but by being examples to the flock from the heart. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. But the God of all grace, who has called us to His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little, will Himself perfect, confirm, and establish you. To Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
✝️Gospel (Mt 16:13-19)
At that time, Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, and He asked His disciples, saying, “Who do men say that the Son of Man is?” They said, “Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
🔑The Rock and the Shepherd: The Foundation of the Church in the Successors of Peter
⛪️Today's liturgy, by celebrating a Pope and Martyr, immerses us in the very mystery of the Church, founded on the rock of Peter and guided by his successors. The Gospel from Caesarea Philippi is not merely a historical account but the foundational act of the Petrine primacy. Peter's confession—"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God"—does not spring from "flesh and blood," that is, from human opinion, but from a revelation of the Father. It is upon this divinely revealed faith that Christ builds His Church. St. Augustine teaches that the rock is the faith Peter professed: "Upon this rock, which you have confessed... I will build my Church. For the Rock was Christ (Petram erat Christus), and on this foundation Peter himself was also built" (Tractate 124 on the Gospel of John, 5). The Pope, like St. Melchiades, is the guardian and proclaimer of this faith. He exercises the power of the keys not as a despot, but as the "servant of the servants of God," binding and loosing on earth that which reflects the will of heaven. The Epistle, written by St. Peter himself, elucidates the nature of this shepherding: not by coercion, but "willingly"; not for greed, but "with dedication"; not as domineering, but as "examples to the flock." St. Melchiades lived this ideal by confronting the Donatist schism with the authority of truth and the charity of a shepherd, seeking to consolidate the unity of the Church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reaffirms that "The Pope, Bishop of Rome and Peter's successor, 'is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity'" (CCC 882). The life of St. Melchiades, marked by the suffering of persecution and steadfastness in peace, shows that shepherding in the Church is intrinsically linked to the Cross, to a participation in the "sufferings of Christ" in order to lead the flock to the "unfading crown of glory."
➡️See English version of the critical articles here.
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