We have to love what the Son loves, we have to love the Virgin, she will help us to Love her Son by giving our selves more fully and completely to Him.

Third Sunday in Easter. John 21; 1-19. April 10th, 2016

Today we read the wonderful account of Jesus’ appearance to the apostles at the shore of the Sea of Galilee. This account is a real turning point in the apostles’ love for Jesus. Even though they had seen the risen Jesus twice, they still didn’t seem to get it; and so as result, they return home to Galilee. Eventually, they would get it, and so come to understand fully their vocation or mission; however, this would come later on the day of Pentecost. But for now, in the mean time, they would go back to what was natural to them; in other words, they go fishing…sounds good to me???

Surprisingly though, in today’s Gospel we hear how these experienced fishermen after spending all night, didn’t catch a thing. There is an important message here that goes beyond their fishing ability. First they couldn’t really go back to a normal life after their true encounter with the Risen Jesus; they just were not the same men as they were before.

But an even more important message is that in their new mission, their natural abilities would just not be enough. If they needed Jesus to succeed even on a natural level of catching fish, how much more did they need Him to catch fish on a supernatural level, that is to catch the souls of men in order to lead them to love of Jesus and so salvation.

At dawn, we are told, Jesus appears on the shore, but interestingly the apostles do not notice him. They are in the midst of their ordinary routine and so don’t expect the Risen Christ to appear in the ordinary. Unrecognized, Jesus asks them if they had caught anything- even though proud fisherman, they have to admit their failure honestly- “No,” they yell back. And so, Jesus calls them to cast their nets off the right side of the boat. Naturally, they were unable to catch fish, but now at the command of Jesus, the apostles cast their nets into the deep. Perhaps they thought they had nothing to loose- but the power of God working through them, suddenly put 153 fish in the nets. With their success, the disciples began to learn that they had to rely on Jesus in everything, rather than merely on their own power.

Because he loves Jesus with a purer love it is St. John, who recognizes Jesus first. And so it is he who tells Peter, “It is the Lord.” At these words, Peter recognizes Jesus as well; and in great abandonment, jumps into the water and swims to Jesus.

Once on shore after finishing the breakfast Jesus had prepared for them, Jesus still next to the fire begins to question Peter, and in a way reminiscent to how Peter was questioned in Jerusalem when before another fire he denied Jesus. A three-fold denial at night, is now to be atoned for by a three fold profession of love in the day. There is even more going on here however, than meets the eye.

Our English translation of the Bible has missed an important element in this passage. If we could read it in the original Greek it would be much clearer. In Greek there are four different words for love. Two of these words are used here. The first word is philia, which is a brotherly love, or a natural human love. The second word is agape. Agape is more than natural human love, it is a sacrificial love, in which a man, is not only willing, by lays down his life for his brother or friend. The New Testament writers borrowed the Greek Agape in order to try and describe a natural human love, which in, through and with Jesus and His grace, is elevated to a Supernatural level.

With an agape love a man can actually love his brother and his God not merely with a human love, but also with the very love of God alive in his heart; in other words, with a divine love. Agape is human love infused, elevated and united to the supernatural level or to the divine level; this is known as Charity and it is the deepest longing of the human heart. Charity is to love God and to love one’s brother with both a human and a divine love...it is to love one’s friend not only for Love of Jesus but with the Love of Jesus, united to Jesus.

And so Jesus begins. “Peter, son of John, do you agape love me, do you love me with a supernatural divine love, in which your give me your all, even your life?” Now Peter, perhaps still with the image in his mind of that penetrating gaze of Jesus given to him after denying Jesus, was not about to make the same mistake twice. Remember Peter at the Last Supper impetuously said, “Lord I will follow you even to the death. And yet when it came down to it, Peter failed to even admit he knew Jesus (the other disciples didn’t do much better, they all ran in the Garden, only St. John returned to the foot of the cross—because when he ran, he ran to Mary). In his denial, Peter had learned the hard way that alone He could not love Jesus with an agape love. And so Peter responds reservedly, “Yes, Lord, you know that I philia love you, that is I love you with merely a natural human kind of love.”

And so Jesus asks Him again, “Peter son of John do you agape, love me?” Again Peter, again responds reservedly, “Yes, Lord you know that I philia, Love you.” And finally Jesus asks Peter, “Peter, Son of John, do you philia love me?” Do you even love me with a natural human love?” Peter was of course distressed, some translations say, “cut to the quick” because Jesus questions whether Peter even loved him with a natural human kind of love.

With this question Peter realizes that without Jesus, not only is it impossible for him to agape, that is to love supernaturally—divinely, but it is also impossible for him even to love with a natural human love. In other words, Peter learned that we need Jesus to help us love authentically, to love as we have been created to love.
We are made to be fully human, and to be fully human means to love not only with a natural human love alone, a philia love, but to love with an agape love, that is to love with God’s own love alive in us. We have been created for Divine love and to love divinely is to love fully human, to love the way for which we have been made. And so if we don’t love with God’s divine love alive in us, not only can we not love divinely, we cannot even love with a true human love, we cannot love fully human.

Our world thinks that it can somehow be fully human without Jesus Christ; it is sadly mistaken. We all have a fallen human nature and have lost the ability to love, as we ought, as we were created to love. And as a consequence, the more we turn from God, from His Church and from His commandments of love, the more we become less than human, and so the more we no longer love fully human. As a result, the more we become a culture of death. The more our society turns from God’s love the more we act inhumanly, the more we stop living authentically human lives.

Today in our Easter joy, let us be encouraged by Peter. Peter, who had once in darkness failed so miserably to love, now by his repentance and confession, opened his heart to receive the very light and love of Christ and it slowly transformed him. Remember today’s Gospel ends with the prophecy of Peter’s martyrdom. In the end, Peter indeed would fully agape love Jesus- he would receive the grace to give his life in a sacrificial offering, in imitation of Jesus, truly becoming a fisher of men.

We too, like Peter are so weak. We fail so often in love. We are afraid to give Jesus everything. Nevertheless, like Peter, we have to tell Jesus we love Him, we have to confess the darkness; that is our failure to love Him totally. And we must confess our sins in the darkness of the confessional in the Sacrament of confession. But confess them in order to come into the light of Christ’s mercy and open our hearts more fully to Jesus and His unfathomable love for us.

The Easter season is here to say our failures do not have to have the last word; if we only repent and confess, Christ’s victorious love will have the last word in our lives. At Holy Mass we can literally receive this victorious love of the Risen Jesus who is truly present in the holy Eucharist, Body Blood Soul and Divinity; it is He who turns our darkness into day—it is He who can transform us as He did with Peter. The Holy Eucharist contains the depths of the very Love of God, for it is truly the God who is Love. With the Holy Eucharist, that is with Jesus we can do all things, provided we truly believe that the Holy Eucharist is the Risen Jesus, adore Him there as the true and living God, trust in Him completely in order to love Him enough to offering ourselves totally to Him.

With the Eucharist, and only with the Eucharist, we can agape love Jesus and others. The Eucharist is the means, the source for us to love fully human, to love with our love elevated and united to Jesus’ divine love, in order to be able to bring others to Jesus, so that they may be saved along with us. But we have to, like Peter, trust more and jump out of the boat and swim to our Risen Lord who waiting for us on the shore…that is to Jesus who is waiting for us at the sacred agape meal of the Holy Mass and in the tabernacle in order to transform us as He transformed Peter. Let us turn to the Blessed Mother for help, she was always faithful. We have to love what the Son loves, we have to love the Virgin, she will help us to Love her Son by giving our selves more fully and completely to Him.