3rd Sunday of Easter - C 2025

One of the more common struggles I witness as a priest is the quiet discouragement that creeps in as people strive – and fail – to be holy.  “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect,” our Lord commands.  It’s a tall order, and we feel it.  We are weak.  And I count myself among the strugglers.

I often come to Confession with a neat little list in hand.  Afterward I sometimes think, “Why throw this away?  I could save paper and just reuse it next time.”  The gap between what I profess and how I live is… considerable.  I say I believe in Christ.  I say I believe all that has been revealed.  But when the rubber meets the road, I fall short.  And that’s putting it gently.

Today’s Gospel, though, gives us a lesson in divine mercy and a remedy to despair.  It reveals how our Lord treats those whose actions fail to match the faith they profess.  We find ourselves beside a charcoal fire – a detail that St. John does not include by accident.  The last time a charcoal fire appeared in John’s Gospel Peter was warming himself in the courtyard while Christ stood trial.  A few hours prior Peter had sworn that he was ready to die for Jesus.  Now three times he denies our Lord.  He speaks boldly when confident, but under pressure, courage vanishes and self-preservation takes over.  He realizes his weakness.  He weeps bitterly.

Christ suffers, dies, rises, and begins to appear to His disciples.  Slowly, their faith is strengthened as these terrible and joyful events unfold.  Then we come again to a charcoal fire.  Jesus takes Peter aside and asks, “Do you love me?” – three times, mirroring the three denials.  And with this, Peter is forgiven, and their relationship is restored.

But there’s more beneath the surface.  In English, we use the word “love” for everything from spouses to cheeseburgers.  But the Greek is more precise.  The first two times Jesus asks Peter, He uses the word agape – a total, self-giving love, the kind that dies for the beloved.  Peter responds each time with phileo – the love of a friend.  A good love, but not yet total.  Peter has been humbled by his failings at the first coal fire.

Let me rephrase Peter and Jesus’ conversation to drive home what I mean.  The conversation may have gone like this: “Peter, do you love me totally and completely?” our Lord asks Peter.  Peter responds “Yes, Lord.  I love you.  But not as you are asking, not with a total and self-sacrificial love.”  Once again, Jesus asks “Peter, do you love me totally and completely?”  Peter responds “Yes, Lord.  But not as I should.”

And then, remarkably, Jesus lowers the bar.  The third time, He says, “Peter, do you love me” phileo.  He adopts Peter’s word.  He meets Peter where he is.  He does not demand immediate perfection nor does He rebuke Peter for falling short.  Instead, He entrusts him with a mission: “Feed my sheep.  Tend my lambs.  Follow me.”

Peter is unsure if he can love Christ as Christ wants him to.  And yet Christ works with what Peter gives Him.

And it’s the same with us.  Christ meets us in our weakness.  He accepts our halting steps.  He does not leave us there, of course – divine charity is not content with mediocrity.  But He does begin there.  If we give Him what little we have, He will use it to draw us closer to Himself.

Our belief in Christ should shape the whole of our lives – our friendships, our use of time, even our political convictions.  But the truth is that belief, for many of us, flickers.  We assent with our lips but hesitate with our lives.  Yet the good news remains: the Lord is patient.  He works with what we offer, and He calls us forward, slowly, steadily, toward perfection.  And the more acts of generosity we make, our hearts are expanded and we can give more generously.  Eventually Peter would die for Jesus in Rome.  At that second coal fire he was not sure if he loved our Lord with agape love.  But eventually he was able.

Don’t despise the tension between what we believe and how we live.  That tension is the very battleground of holiness.  It’s where sanctity is forged – not in triumphalism, but in humility.  Like Peter, we must allow ourselves to be called again and again.  We must never tire to begin again.  We must return to the Lord after every failure, trusting that He is always ready to receive us in the Sacraments – especially in Confession and the Eucharist.

Sanctity is not achieved in a single heroic act, but in a thousand small “yeses” to grace.  If we are humble, if we are generous then one day we, too, shall love the Lord not only as friends, but with that full and total love to which He has always called us.