Knowledge through Love
I would like to ask how well do we know God? How well do we know His ways? We catch glimpses of the Divine Action within ourselves, our observations of events around us, historical developments, but in this life we can only see dimly as in a mirror, St Paul tells us. Can we imagine the rewards of Heaven? They far exceed anything of the goods we can see here below, because God wants to give us much more than we can ever imagine. He wants to give us His very Self in an Eternal Communion of Love. The Scriptures speak of a great Heavenly Banquet and Marriage Feast, but these too are very dim reflections, poor images, of the reality, which we cannot imagine. Then we will see Him face to face, where God will be all in all. The invitation is open to all, to every human being in existence. “Go out to the highways and hedges, and compel people to come in’, Our Lord said. Yet His ways of drawing us in are often subtle, gentle, but always filled with an infinite compassion. St Paul got knocked off his horse, but that too was an act of Divine Mercy. We note the way Jesus engaged in conversation with the woman at the well. We see His Merciful action here today in his encounter with 7 of the apostles, and with Peter in particular.
Our individual journeys towards God are filled with signs pointing us in the true direction if we are sensitive to read them. Our lives have been filled with a multitude of them, most of which we cannot recall or perhaps we never understood them or even perceived them. We are often puzzled, as indeed are the apostles today. This third appearance of Our Lord follows upon the one where He suddenly appears among them in a room with the doors shut. Then He gave them a mission: “Receive the Holy Spirit”, He says, giving them the power to forgive sins. No more, no detailed instructions of a mission, no strategic 10-year plan, just that, and then disappears. Later by the Sea of Tiberias, Peter’s response to these encounters is simply: “I’m going fishing”! And this response finally entails a miracle – the enormous catch of fish – a meal, and a conversation filled with a mysterious compassion and love. Note the signs here. The charcoal fire – the only other time we hear of a charcoal fire is when Peter stood by warming himself and denied that he even knew Jesus, three times. The large quantity of fish, but the net does not break. The true Church, however great or small it may be, can never be filled to a maximum capacity and it does not break, for the jaws of death will not prevail against it. The meal which miraculously appears, pointing to the miracle of the Holy Eucharist, the thanksgiving meal which is our foretaste of Heaven and Communion with the Person of Our Crucified and Risen Lord. The apostles had all abandoned Him, apart from St John and Our Lady, at the crucifixion. But there is no upbraiding for this. Jesus understands their weakness, our weaknesses, better than we do ourselves. The primacy of Peter is being re-established. While he had once boldly claimed “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away”, now Jesus asks him: “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” Are you ready to love and not fall away? The leader must be the exemplar, and his three-fold denial is thrice being undone. “You know that I love you.” His appeal is to Jesus and His Mercy which he knows he has received. There is no need for any lengthy explanations. And here is his mission: Tend to my sheep, feed my lambs. The sheep, the lambs, the Church are in the Hands of Jesus, the Chief Shepherd always, that is, in the Hands of God. But the leader, Peter, must show his love first and foremost. He can guide and lead the sheep, the lambs, only in so far as he remains in communion with Jesus, by demonstrating his love for Him by his very life. As the Good Shepherd does, so must he be the first to do so and indeed all the shepherds of the Church. They too must lay down their lives for the sheep. Only in this way does the true Church grow.
The disciples had laboured all night but caught nothing. And although they did not yet recognize who it was on the shore telling them to cast the net on the other side of the boat, strangely perhaps, they instantly obeyed! And this despite the rather sharp reply from Peter to the question: ‘Children, have you caught anything’? – No! But when we do things the Lord’s way rather than our own, we experience an easy impulse which we can recognize. It is not Peter who recognizes the Lord first, but John, the disciple whom Jesus loved. Although we are not told, perhaps it might even have been at John’s suggestion that they try it out? “While the exhausted intellect remains without, love states: ‘I shall go in’”, wrote the Flemish mystic Jan Van Ruysbroeck. The disciple who rested on the Heart of Jesus never abandoned Him. It is love that leads forward. It is love that enables the disciple to see clearly the ways of the Lord. This is no mere sentiment, but a heroic, virtuous love. Providentially, it was love established from the Cross, within the two great disciples, Mary and St. John, that was the seed of the Church. Peter, the impulsive leader had to learn this lesson … more than once!
In so far as we possess Divine Mercy in our souls, we can be truly free, open to do the Will of God in our lives, open to receive His Divine Grace in the present moment. The knowledge we possess through the Indwelling of the Spirit far surpasses the knowledge our exhausted intellects try to possess. Mary’s ‘yes’ to God was an act of obedience, true, but even more we can say it was an act of love because her soul rejoiced in the Holy Spirit. St Augustine wrote: “Dilige, et quod vis, fac” – love, and do what you will. A heart that is free will do God’s Will.