He was born Simon, son of John, and worked as a fisherman at Bethsaida, east of the Sea of Galilee, in a business shared with the family of Zebedee on the lake of Gennesaret. ¹ His brother was Andrew.

Jesus gave him the Aramaic name Cephas, in Greek Petros - rock. Benedict XVI counts it 154 times in the New Testament. ¹ The name was "not only a name; it was a mandate" ², in the way Old Testament renamings came before a job.

At Caesarea Philippi Peter said who Jesus was - "You are the Christ" - and was told that flesh and blood had not revealed it to him but the Father. ¹ The answer he received is the charter of his office: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church.... 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." ²

Benedict XVI separates the three images: the rock is the Church's structural base; the keys are the authority to open or close; the binding and loosing is the power to establish or prohibit what the life of the Church requires. ² And he adds the qualification that governs all three - it remains "always Christ's Church, not Peter's." ²

Peter swore at the Last Supper that he would never deny Jesus, and then denied knowing him to a servant girl. ³ Benedict XVI puts it without cushioning: "he gives in to fear and falls: he betrays the Master." ²

Franciscan Media records what happened next - that Jesus looked at him with forgiveness, and Peter wept bitterly. ³ The man who runs the Church is a man with that on his record, and the Gospels made no attempt to lose the story.

After the resurrection, by the lakeside, Jesus asked him three times whether he loved him - using different Greek words, agapao and fileo, as Peter kept answering with the smaller one - and told him to follow. ² Three questions for three denials, and no discussion of what he had done.

Benedict XVI draws out the lesson of the whole life in a sentence: Peter had to learn to "follow Jesus and not go before him: it is he who shows us the way." ¹ That is the correction of a man whose failures all came from getting ahead of God.

This is the one question about Peter with an unsatisfying answer: no authoritative source gives him an individual patronage. Franciscan Media names Peter and Paul jointly as patrons of Greece. ⁴ He is emphatically not the patron saint of fishermen, despite being one - that is his brother Andrew. ⁵

Peter is honored with Saint Paul on June 29, the Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. ³

Peter denied Christ three times and was handed the keys anyway. ²³ The Church has been run from the beginning by somebody with that on his record, and the Gospels made no attempt at all to lose the story.

His mistakes are almost all the same mistake. Benedict XVI puts the correction in a line: follow Jesus, do not go in front of him, since he is the one who shows the way. ¹ Enthusiasm arriving ahead of instruction.

By the lake afterward, Jesus asked three times whether Peter loved him, and Peter kept answering with the smaller word. ² He was commissioned on the smaller word. You do not have to feel more than you feel before you can be given something to do.

He swore he would never deny him and meant it, hours before he did. ³ Anyone living with a promise they broke in complete sincerity is in the first pope's company.