Written in letters that are 9ft tall, on the base of the great dome of St Peter’s Basilica, designed by the genius Michelangelo, are the words of Our Lord to Simon, ‘You are Peter, and upon this Rock, I will build My Church… I give to you the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.’ We will hear these words anew in the Gospel of this Sunday, the Sunday of Ordinary Time replaced by the Solemnity of Ss Peter and Paul - not universally throughout the world, but in only one or two places that have a special devotion to Ss Peter and Paul. For us, in England and Wales, we keep Ss Peter and Paul today because it is a holyday in our country; we recall the devotion and loyalty our ancestors had in striving to maintain and then restore our country to the True Faith and Union with Rome after the disaster of the Tudors. The Church that is alive in our country today - including the freedom to celebrate Holy Mass publicly - is the blessing bought by the martyrs and recusants who stubbornly insisted that Christ founded the Church on St Peter and his Successors as Bishops of Rome. We thank God for His Providence and for the example and witness of our English and Welsh martyr-saints. May we be worthy of their memory.