Sunday, 5/5/2019 – Jesus Makes Things Right

Jesus makes things right. It’s as simple as that. 

Here we have Peter – who on Good Friday denied knowing our Lord three times. And here is Jesus, following His Resurrection, appearing to the disciples on the shores of the Sea of Tiberias, and giving Peter the chance to profess his love for Jesus – three times.

That’s all Jesus wants, is our love. He just wants us. He just wants our time. He just wants us to put Him before all else, and He will come back to us as many times as necessary. He comes to us as many times as necessary – to save us, to offer redemption, to make things right.

For as many times as we deny Him, He comes back to us, asking us to accept Him. Asking us to profess our faith to Him. Asking us to love Him. It’s as simple as that. 

Thousands of years of theology and analysis on the meaning of scripture, the purpose of life, and everything else in-between. The purpose is simple. The meaning is simple. 

Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep. 

In other words, Jesus says: “take care of and love those around you. Teach them My ways. Live My ways. 

It’s as simple as that. Have faith. Believe. Trust in God. Ask and it shall be granted. Seek and ye shall find. Do unto others as you would have done to you. Own your mistakes. Ask for forgiveness. Forgive others. 

Jesus will give us every opportunity to repent for out mistakes. Every opportunity. Do we offer that to others? Because if we do not offer that opportunity to others, then Jesus will not offer that for us. 

I love the Gospel for today. It is perhaps my favorite reading in all of Scripture – because I see Jesus – the resurrected Jesus as a man, sitting with His friends over breakfast. In the simplest of ways, He came to them and met them where they were, just as He did in the very beginning. 

And now here He was, resurrected from the dead, the true Son of God, just defeated Satan and everything else, and here he is on a beach making His friends breakfast, still being the teacher. Unbelievable, but yet so real. So True.

Jesus continues to feed us and teach us all throughout life. We simply need to stop and listen

And so, when I pray, I envision this Man, this Divine Man, sitting on this shore, listening to me, like a brother. Like a friend over a campfire. And it’s comforting. It’s a complete mystery, yet it is amazingly simple. This is why I love this reading, and why I love my God.

It is why, when I am in the midst of making things wrong – He makes things right. 

It’s as simple as that.

Todays readings for Mass

About the Author

My name is Joe LaCombe, and I am a Software Developer in Fishers, Indiana in the USA. My wife Kristy and I have been married for 19 years and we have an awesome boy, Joseph, who is in 5th Grade! We are members of St. Elizabeth Seton Parish in Carmel, Indiana where we volunteer with various adult faith ministries. I love writing, and spending time with my family out in the nature that God created, and contemplating His wonders. I find a special connection with God in the silence and little things of everyday life, and I love sharing those experiences with all of you.

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6 Comments

  1. As his sheep may we always hear his voice. Thank you for this lovely reflection.

  2. Thank you, Joseph. I, too try to see Jesus in front of me when I pray but not always. I need to remember to do it each and every time and every day.
    (Thank you for your prayers! My mother is finally home & doing well! Quyana Agayun[Thank you, Lord]!!!
    Adore Jesus!!!

  3. Hi Joe,
    This is one of my favorites also. I have family in Fishers! Thanks for your reflection. You helped me!

  4. Many years ago, I attended at 5-day Bible Study retreat. It was one of the best I’ve been to. One of the sessions tackled this passage from John 21 where Jesus asks Peter if he loves him. Of all the handouts we received, I kept the 11 page explanation. However, I would like to share an excerpt which intrigued me and is forever ingrained in my brain about the different ways Jesus and Peter refer to Love (Agape and Phileo).

    Excerpt from Fr. Murray Watson’s commentary for the Third Sunday of Easter (April 18, 2010)

    For centuries, commentators and preachers have been intrigued by an apparently unusual linguistic shift in vv. 15-17 (the dialogue between Jesus and Peter). In the first two questions that Jesus puts to Peter, He asks him, “Simon, son of John , do you love me [more than these]?” —and the Greek verb in both cases is ἀγαπάω, agapaō. Peter’s response, however, makes use of a different verb, ϕιλέω, phileō . In the third questioning, however, Jesus switches to phileō, and Peter responds with the same verb. Those who are familiar with C.S. Lewis’ well-known little book The Four Loves will know that Lewis distinguishes (and expounds upon) the four most common terms for love in ancient Greek … Lewis concludes that phileō refers, more or less, to a love of warmth and friendship, a close bond of affection and loyalty between people who care about each other. But, he argues … that the distinctively Christian love—to which Christ calls us—is not philia but agapē, a powerful, self-sacrificing kind of love … It is that love, Lewis would argue, which is most perfectly made visible to humanity in the Passion and death of Jesus on the Cross, and it is the model for all Christian loving. It is, therefore, the “summit” of the different types of love, the ultimate that a human being can attain—a lofty and challenging goal. It is for this reason, commentators suggest, that Peter (chastened and humbled by his own experience of weakness and betrayal) does not promise to love Jesus with this agapē–love. He realizes all too well that his past professions of love, loyalty and devotion have been proven false—the memory of Holy Thursday and Good Friday remains bitterly imprinted in his memory. Peter, who once was so exuberant in his promises to serve and defend Christ, has learned how easily he can fail in actually living that love—and so he offers to Christ what he is able to do: to offer Him the love of a devoted friend, which is something less than the agapē Jesus proposes. After twice asking Peter for this agapē, Jesus then “comes down” to Peter’s level, and asks him, not for agapē, but for philia. The lesson, therefore, would lie both in Peter’s newly-acquired humility, but also in Jesus’ loving condescension to Peter’s confessed limitations—not demanding more of him than Peter feels he is able to give. Jesus welcomes the humble, limited, imperfect love that Peter is capable of, and it is enough of a foundation for Him to build further upon. Of course, ancient Christian tradition states that Peter does, in fact, give his life in martyrdom for Jesus—does, in fact, end his life in Rome with an act of agapē (and the end of today’s Gospel alludes cryptically to Peter’s death as a martyr). But that is still in the future, and, for the moment, Peter is not prepared to make such a commitment, having discovered (the hard way) the rashness of such bold and impetuous professions of valour .
    …
    John wishes us to see parallels between Peter’s threefold profession of love and fidelity toward Jesus, and his earlier threefold denial of Him in the courtyard of the High Priest’s house on Holy Thursday night. That this is so is further emphasized by the fact that Jesus is said to be cooking the breakfast over “a charcoal fire” [anthrakia]—an unusual and unnecessary detail that specifically recalls the place where Peter was warming himself with the guards a few nights earlier (18:18, 25), when he had so emphatically denied any knowledge of Jesus. There is a powerful sense of reconciliation and healing here: Jesus is offering Peter a much-needed opportunity to repent of his previous infidelity, to re-commit himself to his Lord, and to be strengthened, both for his role of leadership in the Christian community, and for the sufferings and violent death that will await him in the future, in Rome . But it is done with gentleness and compassion, without confrontation or recrimination—a model for all of us, in terms of how we should offer forgiveness and reconciliation to those who have hurt, rejected or betrayed us.

    I love that last part, how we should offer forgiveness and reconciliation to those who have hurt, rejected or betrayed us. Without confrontation or recrimination. I’m still working on that.

    Have a blessed Sunday

  5. Thank you for posting that, Chris. Very informative!

    We’re all working on that last part.

  6. Thank you Steve and Chris. Both thought provoking and beautiful ways to set our Lord.

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