Today’s Readings are a celebration of those two great saints Peter and Paul and, as such, need little explanation or elaboration. We know so much and yet so little about these two men. Paul, certainly, is never far away from us. He is constantly talking to us through his letters which make up such a substantial part of our Readings cycle. Peter is the best known of the Apostles and is at the forefront in many of the stories we hear read from the Gospels. What can anyone usefully add about these men when their Feast comes round? Not much, I’m afraid. But what about their background? What was their world like and who were those who appear as little more than shadows but must have loomed large at the time? Perhaps if we knew a little more about the world in which they lived and moved Peter and Paul might come a little more alive as ordinary people called by Jesus to live extraordinary lives.