May 6th

Post date: May 06, 2019 4:31:48 PM

May 5, 2019 Homily by Fr. Karl Schray

About 40 or 50 years after Peter had been martyred,

John wrote his Gospel. Why do you suppose

John remembered this conversation between Jesus and Peter and

made it part of his Gospel?

Was it just because it was a nice story? No. It was because it showed

Jesus’ merciful forgiveness and it also shows something else.

Each time Jesus asked, “Do you love me?”

Jesus followed it up with a mission: “feed my lambs; feed my sheep.”

Why make an issue of this special mission given to Peter

after he had long been dead? The most obvious reason I see is that it

emphasized a position of responsibility that Jesus was giving to Peter

that was meant to endure. Peter’s successors (Linus, Cletus, Clement…

all the way to our present Pope Francis would continue serving in the

ministry that Jesus gave to Peter, to feed and tend Christ’s people.

Jesus’ question to Peter, (do you love me?) is the same question

he regularly asks us. He knows we are imperfect;

he knows we fail him in times of weakness, pride, greed, etc.

What he wants to know is that we sincerely love him,

and when we do, then he forgives all our failings.

Loving Jesus means following what He teaches us.

The following story relates to the First Reading from Acts of the Apostles:

There was a Catholic woman here in America

who had grown up in Eastern Europe under Communism.

In her homeland public worship was suppressed and any gesture suggesting rejection of atheism could be brutally punished.

After emigrating to America, she expected that the practice of her faith

would be easy.

Yet she actually found it harder to be a Christian in America. Why?

Back in her homeland, she had to defend her faith.

The more she was called upon to defend it, the stronger it grew.

Instead of extinguishing the spark of faith,

persecution fanned that spark into a flame. Her faith

was all the more precious because she had to fight for it every day.

Easier times give rise to shyness and that corrosive secular spirit

that creeps in and takes over. There is a danger that religion

would become a thing confined to church-going and the saying of prayers.

She discovered the excessive materialism of America was dissolving

religious tradition even more quickly than was happening under

Communism. It came as a shock to discover that people

could be indifferent to what were the core values of her life.

It shows how we value what we have to work for.

A thing becomes precious because of the sacrifices we have made for it.

In a cold climate, we value a fire and tend it carefully.