Third Sunday of Easter – Year C
Acts 5: 27-32,40b-41
Rev. 5: 11-14
Jn. 21:1-19
Man is on a journey through life, a spiritual journey. Growth in the Holy Spirit is something that distinguishes us from the rest of creation. As the French Philosopher, Gabriel Marcel, wrote: Man is a ‘homo viator’, a traveller, on the way, from life, to death and in hope of then gaining eternal life. We may resist this growth, but at our peril. St Benedict warns the monk against seeking ‘soft living’. The trials and tribulations of one’s life are what perfect one. They are what perfect one in love. For it is not so much in avoiding such trials that we are perfect – sometimes they are simply unavoidable anyway – but rather how we deal with them when they come our way. The Gospels relate in some detail the spiritual growth of the apostles during the brief three years Jesus was with them. Especially is this true of St Peter, the one chosen by Our Lord to be Shepherd of His flock. The impetuous Peter, was one sometimes getting things right as when he confessed that Jesus was “the Christ, the son of the living God”, but then the next moment getting things very wrong as he tried to talk Our Lord out of undergoing His Passion. As foretold by Jesus, Peter denied Him three times at the time of Jesus’ trial. But now today, three times he confesses his love for Jesus. His spiritual journey is described exceptionally well by St Augustine in the following way:
“Such was the end reached by that denier and lover; elated by his presumption, prostrated by his denial, cleansed by his weeping, approved by his confession, crowned by his suffering, this was the end he reached, to die with a perfected love for the name of Him with whom, by a perverted forwardness, he had promised to die.”
(St Augustine’s original Latin text is very poetical, very musical:
hunc inuenit exitum ille negator, et amator, praesumendo elatus, negando prostratus, flendo purgatus, confitendo probatus, patiendo coronatus; hunc inuenit exitum, ut pro eius nomine perfecta dilectione moreretur, cum quo se moriturum peruersa festinatione promiserat.)
“To die with a perfected love for the name of Jesus” is the calling of everyone, irrespective of the type of death we undergo. This is especially true of the martyrs, like St Peter and the other apostles. But it is true for us too, regardless of how we may die. The tenderness of this Gospel scene from St John is very striking. Our God is a merciful God. We can hear Him speak to us in the depths of our hearts, asking the same question: “Do you love me?” And although the shepherds of the flock, our Church leaders, do not necessarily have the strength of faith of some others, nevertheless St Peter does have a most important role as Shepherd because it is on this rock that the Church was and is being built. The origins of the Church on earth – although not her eternal origins, as the Church has been eternally existing in the mind of God – rested especially on St Peter. He therefore needed to be perfected in love. So too was it with the other apostles. They needed to be perfected in love. And although Jesus did upbraid them many times for their lack of faith, here He does not do this. Here are gathered the individuals upon who the Church is built. And the Church is nothing if it cannot be the means through which the Divine Mercy, the Mercy of our Loving Saviour, the Mercy of the Holy Trinity, flows out to the whole of creation. And we too have a vital part of this flow of Divine Mercy, to which we must bear witness through the examples of our lives. Proclaim to the whole world that God is a God of Mercy who seeks to support us in all the trials and tribulations and our rejoicings! Easter is a time for rejoicing! And many there are around us who need also to share in this Easter joy. Our sufferings are, paradoxically, an intrinsic part of this joy. There is a very powerful quote from the late Fr Benedict Groeshel at the beginning of the last chapter of Sr Mary David’s book ‘The Joy of God”: “The question is not why Christ’s followers suffer … The question is why they have so little joy. Not only can joy co-exist with sorrow and suffering, it should make them endurable and holy. Who has not witnessed the rare joy and peace of a believer who faces a terminal illness with faith and hope? This joy, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit, is founded on the hope of eternal life.”
To die with a perfected love for the name of Jesus we can also say was Mary’s vocation, even though she was assumed body and soul into heaven. There never was a separation of her body from her soul and in that sense she did not die. Tradition is silent about a burial place for Mary and that kind of silence speaks very loudly indeed! Nevertheless she is Queen of Martyrs and the sword of suffering did pierce through her soul too. We speak of the seven sorrows of Mary as she followed her Son in His Passion and Death. No creature suffered, or could undergo the sufferings of Mary and live. Such was the mystical and spiritual strength of her immaculately conceived soul. Her role, as Mother of the Church, is to be the bonding instrument of Divine Mercy to all her children, even to all who do not even know her. In our own calling to die with a perfected love for the name of Jesus, let us turn again and again to Mary who leads and guides us along our individual ways as we hope for eternal life. The Holy Spirit rushes to that soul wherein He finds His Spouse, the Blessed Virgin Mary. And this is what all the saints hold in common, irrespective of their particular way of being called in living as a ‘homo viator’ and in dying with a perfected love for the name of Jesus.
Dom Brian Gerard Kelly