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The tomb of St. Peter in the city of Rome is, from the standpoint of natural reason, in a strange place.

The way of the world would suggest that Peter, like most Galilean fishermen, should have lain in the dirt near his hometown of Capernaum. There, it would have been lost and forgotten.

Yet, Peter is buried underneath the altar in the largest church in the Christian world, in as glorious a surrounding as anyone could ever imagine. His grave is far from forgotten. Rather, pilgrims from across the globe in their thousands and millions make their way toward it to say their prayers and seek everything from physical cures to the simple renewal of their Catholic faith. Peter’s bones are in Rome. They are out of place.

Yet in being out of place, they make clear to us the meaning of this week’s Gospel. Christ today says to the Apostles that if they wish to find their lives and remain his friends, they must not be afraid to follow him even by carrying their crosses and losing their lives. The Lord tells his followers that a relationship with him will require them to leave what is comfortable and will change them forever. A true disciple of Jesus will have to accept the disruption of his life.

This was precisely the case with Peter, and it is why his bones are not now in the dirt of the Holy Land. When Peter met Christ, he began a new life. He had been a fisherman, he became a fisher of men; he had been called Simon bar-Jonah, he received the name Peter; he had followed the law of the Old Testament, he became a tireless preacher of the grace of the New Testament. He followed the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel, losing himself for Christ’s sake and finding real life in holiness as one of the Lord’s Apostles, one of the founding pillars of the church in which we now live.

Peter was not initially ready to follow the path of this great adventure. We hear today that he is unwilling to accept Christ’s own suffering on the cross, even meriting to hear from Jesus the terrifying words “get behind me Satan.” Even later in his life, he would have to learn again the value of laying down his own will for the Lord.

The story is told that when Peter was bishop in Rome, and the emperor Nero had begun persecuting Christians with great violence, Peter attempted to flee the city. Perhaps he thought he needed to preserve himself for the sake of future work on behalf of the church, perhaps he was simply frightened, perhaps a little of both.

Whatever the case, while he was fleeing south out of Rome, he saw a vision of Christ walking back into the city carrying his cross. Peter asked Jesus, “Lord, where are you going?” The Lord answered him, “I go to Rome to be crucified again.”

Peter understood that Christ was calling him to offer his life in witness to the Gospel as a martyr, turned around, returned to Rome, and suffered crucifixion on the slopes of the Vatican hill. His bones now rest less than a hundred yards from the spot where he died.

God does not ask of each person that they, like Peter, leave their homes, professions and families to suffer a bloody martyrdom for the faith. Yet we should ask ourselves, how has meeting Christ changed me? If someone looked at my life from the outside, would they notice that I was living for another?

If we follow the Lord without fear, we might not find eternal rest under a glorious basilica, but we will find eternal life in the peerless glory of heaven.