From the Catholic Liturgy for the 3rd
Sunday of Easter, May 5, 2019. Gospel – John 21:1-19. Theme: Reparation-Love
In today’s Gospel, the Risen Christ makes his third
appearance to the disciples after the first Easter Sunday. In an intimate
conversation which took place around a charcoal fire, Peter tells Jesus three
times that he loves him more than anyone else.
Do you recall a prior meeting of Jesus and Peter that included a
charcoal fire? I’ll give you a hint: it took place in the dark cold hours of
the night between the first Holy Thursday and Good Friday. On that occasion, Peter denies three times
that he even knew Jesus!
St. John wants us to recall that sad event. That’s why he
mentions the charcoal fire again. He is showing us that we can make reparation
to Jesus for our sins no matter what we have done, and that Jesus always takes
the first step forward in deepening his relationship with us. Reparation means
“making up” for our sins and selfishness, especially by doing the opposite of
the wrong we have done. This is exactly what St. Peter does around that
charcoal fire.
Three times Peter had denied Jesus and so now, three times,
he assures the Lord that he loves him.
Peter will back up his words of love with deeds of love. He will go on
in the following 30 years to travel throughout the Middle East and eventually
to Rome, preaching the truth about Jesus. In Rome, the prophecy which Jesus
made to him in today’s Gospel about his death will come true: Peter will be
crucified and seal his love with the very gift of his life.
But St. John is also reminding us in this story of the
great depth of Jesus’s mercy towards us. His forgiving love goes above and
beyond how we would act towards those who hurt us. Jesus not only accepts Peter’s threefold
apology of love, but he re-confirms Peter as the earthly shepherd of the
Church, as the man who would become what we have come to call the Pope. This is
one event in the Bible where we Catholics find solid Bible teaching for the
office and leadership of the Pope.
But it’s the first reason, reparation-love, that I want us
to reflect on today because it applies so very much to each one of us in our
relationship with Christ. To live
reparation-love ourselves, we need to reflect on how each one of us tends to
deny Jesus in our own lives, by choosing to speak or act in a way that denies
that we know Him and His Gospel teachings?
But that’s only the first half of it. Having identified areas
where we tend to fail, we then, like St. Peter, we need to practice deeds of
love, to show that we mean what we say. Because if we do not reflect and make
an intentional plan of action, life will just continue on as usual. And so will
our relationship with Jesus, it will never grow and deepen. It will never
become the life-giving life-changing relationship that Jesus wants to have with
each one of us.
Reparation enables us to love by our actions not just with our
words. Reparation is a proof and a sign
that our love for God is not just talk, not simply a matter of empty promises,
of wishful thinking. Reparation helps us to become humble and to trust in God.
People who recognize their weaknesses, sinfulness, brokenness and limitations
rely on God's grace and not on their own capabilities to do good. The proud
and arrogant do not allow God to work in their lives, or to work through them
in the lives of others. Reparation is an Easter invitation to the new way of
thinking, the new way of living, the new way of loving that is called
Christianity. It reminds us that our own personal sin is never the end of the
story.
Every day God gives us a blank piece of paper and we can
write on it the history of a new day by our acts of reparation. Every day, we have so many opportunities to
show how much we really do love the God whom we cannot see, through our actions
towards those whom we can see. And I think this is how we can best respond to
the Risen Lord’s parting words to Peter, which are also intended to be his
parting words to us who hear this Gospel: Follow me.
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