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Home Sections The Daily B.R.E.A.D. May 29, 2009 - Friday Meditation (When Someone Believes in You)
May 29, 2009 - Friday Meditation (When Someone Believes in You) PDF Print E-mail
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Sections - The Daily B.R.E.A.D.
Written by Bobot Apit   
Wednesday, 27 May 2009 18:25
J esus tells Peter that someday he will be taken "where you do not want to go." Sometimes, I think, this is the "bottom line" of our faith. It is easy to have a relationship with Jesus, if it still leaves me the room to do things my way and go where I want to go. I really become a follower and a disciple when I let him take me where I don't want to go. It is a good day to offer him that kind of surrender, and ask for the grace and freedom to live it when it comes our time to say "yes" in a most unexpected way.




Acts 25:13b-21
Psalm 103:1-2, 11-12, 19-20

J ohn 21:15-19  When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." He said to him, "Feed my lambs." (16) A second time he said to him, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." He said to him, "Tend my sheep." (17) He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, "Do you love  me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep. (18) Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go." (19) This he said to show by what death he was to glorify God. And after this he said to him, "Follow me."


Meditation by Andy Alexander, S.J.

T he gospel for today, coming as it does as a bit of an appendix to the Fourth Gospel, is very important. What Jesus says to Peter applies to Peter personally, but it is also critically important for all who serve in roles of leadership and pastoral service in the Church. It is also a revealing message for all of us to chew.

We remember the context for this story. Peter denied ever knowing Jesus. And he denied it rather forcefully, three times. So, when Peter decides, after the Resurrection, to go back fishing, and after Jesus appears to them by the sea and re-calls them with a miraculous catch of fish, reminding Peter of his first call to follow Jesus, the conversation between Jesus and Peter is stunning.

Jesus asks Peter three times, if he loves Jesus. Peter responds positively each time, painfully aware of his three denials: "Peter was distressed that he had said to him a third time, 'Do you love me?' and he said to him, 'Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.'" What is surprising is not Peter's response but Jesus' follow-up. If Peter loves Jesus - if we love Jesus - we are asked by Jesus to show that love by feeding his sheep.

I find several things helpful for me today in this reflection. It starts with an invitation to love Jesus. In the Greek original text of this story, this message is even clearer. The author uses two different words for "love." The first is agape, a very special kind of love. So, in effect, two times, Jesus asks, "Do you love me with the kind of self-sacrificing love by which God loves you?" Peter answers with the word phileo, which is "brotherly love" (the name for Philadelphia - city of brotherly love - contains this root). In effect, Peter answers three times, saying, "Yes, Lord, I love you with a special friendship." The third time Jesus uses Peter's word. Even if our love for Jesus is a special closeness, and hasn't become a self-sacrificing love yet, he still asks us to feed his sheep. And the first point for our reflection today is this: if I am feeling that I'm not feeding his sheep generously enough, then the reason may be that I need to grow in gratitude and love for Jesus' love for me first. A grateful lover of Jesus will love his sheep.

The second thing to reflect upon today is the question, "What does it mean for me to feed or tend Jesus' sheep?" It makes sense, that if Peter or a bishop is to be a shepherd of Jesus' flock, he must take care of Jesus' sheep, "but what does this mean for me?" Or, "Who are the sheep Jesus asks me to feed or tend to today?" Each of us will answer that in our own ways but the answer the whole rest of the Gospels give is that Jesus came for the "lost sheep," for those who stray, even for those who "don't belong to this flock." Our love needs to be universal - at least always broader, always open, always like his. A very fruitful reflection for today. Are there some people I've excluded from loving? Does my relationship with Jesus make me more open to loving those people those people on the margins of society? What will it mean concretely for me to have greater care for them?

Finally, Jesus tells Peter that someday he will be taken "where you do not want to go." Sometimes, I think, this is the "bottom line" of our faith. It is easy to have a relationship with Jesus, if it still leaves me the room to do things my way and go where I want to go. I really become a follower and a disciple when I let him take me where I don't want to go. It is a good day to offer him that kind of surrender, and ask for the grace and freedom to live it when it comes our time to say "yes" in a most unexpected way.



Supplementary Reading
When Someone Believes in You
 

When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, 'The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.' – Judges 6:12




E dna May Buchanan made international news when she received the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism in 1986. But what you may not know is that Edna May was born into poverty. She wore hand-me-down clothes. Her home life was poor at best. And her self-image suffered countless blows.

One day she was asked to write a paper for school. As the teacher was handing back the papers, she gave Edna May's paper to her and commented, "Edna May, when you write your first book, dedicate it to me!"

That comment, made by a respected teacher to a young girl in shabby clothes, sitting behind a desk in the seventh grade, changed her life. Why? Because Edna May believed it! From that moment forward, Edna May Buchanan's destiny was shaped. Her self-image was forever changed because somebody believed in her.



* * *
Who has believed in you like Edna May's teacher did her? Do something today to let that person know the difference they’ve made in your life.
* * *
   
NOTE:  This excerpt was taken from the "Power for Life Daily Devotional"

GOD BLESS US ALL!

PRAY as if everything depended on HIM. ACT as if everything depended on YOU.






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