Picture the scene. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus tells the disciples on Easter morning to return to Galilee and wait for him there. The disciples have obeyed, but how hard it is to wait in such circumstances! So, Peter and several other disciples decide to return to their old trade of fishing.
They are fishing in their old fishing grounds, probably on a family boat. Reminiscent of another early morning three years before, they have caught nothing. Surely their thoughts went back to that other night and early morning when their new friend Jesus had stopped by their boat, used it as a pulpit, then said, “Put out into deep waters, and you will find a catch.” They did—and the boat almost sank there were so many fish. Then Jesus had said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Follow him they did—all the way to the Garden of Gethsemane. Then, admittedly, they had followed at a distance as this friend and teacher was crucified, died, and buried. Now, they knew he had risen from the dead, but—how could that be? Jesus had come to them in the Upper Room at least twice. “Receive the Holy Spirit” he had said. What did that mean? “Those whose sins you forgive are forgiven,” he had said. What did that mean? He was the Jesus they knew, yes, but he could pass through locked doors and appear suddenly. He could vanish just as quickly.
There is something comforting and helpful about returning to some almost mindless task you know well when you are confused or grieving. There is a safety. While your body does what it has so often done, your mind is free to try to make sense of things and create a new order.
So it must have been all night on the Sea of Tiberias (also known as the Sea of Galilee.)
Then dawn came, though there were no fish in the nets.
They see a man on the seashore. He has started a charcoal fire on the pebble beach. He calls to them, “Children, have you caught anything to eat?” They answer, “No.”
So the man says, “Cast the net over the right side of the boat and you will find something.” They do, the net is loaded, and John recognizes “It is the Lord!” Surely, for all of them the memory of that other morning when Jesus said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” burst in their hearts and souls. Grief must have momentarily turned to joy.
Peter swims ashore, clothed or not, and there is love for breakfast. The disciples are back where it all began. They are doing what they must have done so many times in those years together: having breakfast together from someone’s night’s work. How good it must have felt!
Forgiveness, A Part of Love for Breakfast
Yet there was unfinished business. From Jesus’ first appearances on Easter morning, it seemed clear that he had forgiven his disciples for abandoning him. But was a piece missing? Did they, as ordinary men, need to formally acknowledge they had indeed “missed the mark” on Good Friday and sinned by abandonment and denial against this person they had followed and loved?
Most likely. Many scholars see this last chapter of the Gospel of John as written later than the other twenty chapters. Added from stories told by the disciples? Added from the impulse of the Holy Spirit that all of us miss-the-mark-and-sin disciples of all generations need a pattern to follow to reconcile with our Lord and God when we have sinned by omission or commission.
And so we have this beautiful dialogue between Jesus and Peter.
When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter,
“Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”
Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.”
He then said to Simon Peter a second time,
“Simon, son of John, do you love me?”
Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.”
Jesus said to him the third time,
“Simon, son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was distressed that Jesus 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.”
Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.
Love for Breakfast for Us
Early in the week an old 1970s Glory and Praise song began to emerge in my memory. It was Carey Landry’s “Do You Really Love Me?” It is a ballad about today’s Gospel. By the time I could find a copy of it from Oregon Catholic Press, I had fully remembered the tune and almost all the words.
These are the words to the last verse:
“Do you really love me,” Jesus says to me.
“Do you really love me,” Jesus says to you.
“Lord, you know we love you. We will follow you.”
“Then feed my lambs,” he said, “My people, feed my sheep.”
As I have sung that song what seems like hundreds of times this week, I think I have been with Jesus on the shore. I have been Peter, reconciling with Jesus. The past year has been spiritually very hard for me. What has guided me in the past few months has been a study of the Benedictine promise of “Stability of Heart.”
In short, stability of heart means that, though life circumstances may change, I must remain true to loving God first and then have the stability of heart to find ways to “tend sheep” and “feed lambs,” in changed circumstances according to the call God gives me.
And so, this week this Gospel is especially helpful. I am Peter, recalling the relationship that Jesus and I have long had, considering the work I have done with him, exploring changed circumstances which I now clearly see do not change the work or the relationship, but which, like Peter, I have been reluctant to fully and completely enter into.
And so, this week, Jesus has given me love for breakfast as I sing “Do You Really Love Me?” again and again—and we reconcile for a new day and new circumstances.
You might be having love for breakfast, too. That is one of the many glories of the Resurrection. Jesus can be having love for breakfast with you while he is having it with me while he is having it in the Ukraine while he is having it in….”even the ends of the earth.”
Prayer:
Yes, Lord, I really love you. I will follow you. But, please, Lord, let me come back for love for breakfast from time to time.
Note: Bishop Robert Barron is doing a series of his Sunday Sermons on the second reading each week from Revelation. He sees Revelation as a picture of the new world the Resurrection made possible. Here is a link to last Sunday’s sermon. Each week, for as long as he is doing this, I will post the new link when it becomes available on Sunday morning.
