3rd Sunday Easter
Third Sunday of Easter
There is always a caring and loving God waiting for us.
My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
A new beginning is possible every day of your life. That is the promise Jesus makes at that breakfast. A new beginning is always possible. In order for a new beginning to take place in our lives, we have to do what Peter did; JUMP IN. In the eyes of the world, Peter was one big old failure. He left his job to follow this guy named Jesus who gets himself killed. Big waste of time, during which Peter acted like a coward and winds up back at his old job. He went back to his old habit. He went back to the place that he had left behind. To the same seashore and to the same boat. It could happen to any one of us. God called us to a higher destiny but after sometimes when everything seems to be out of control we go back to the same situations where we came from. Seven expert fishermen worked the whole night in a small lake where there are lots of fish but they got nothing. When they failed there comes the merciful loving and caring Jesus for their help. Notice what Peter did. He doesn’t analyze; doesn’t think boy Jesus must be mad at me. He jumps in. You do not have to be trapped by your own sin, your disappointment, your fear of what will Jesus think. A new beginning will happen if you jump in.
When you feel everything is a failure. When no one really understand you. When you really started thinking that your life itself is a failure and useless and you started leaving everything behind, there comes a loving and caring God at your sea shore as a rising sun. We all face different situations of Peter and the Apostles. This is the beauty of the Gospel. It is alive and it is speaking about us now. We would be making a terrible mistake if we listened to tonight’s Gospel, believing it was only intended for Peter. Its message is for us.
When we prayed and prayed for years and nothing happened we are fed up. When you wait and wait for a job opening and all the doors are closed to you, when some one whom you loved just dumped you and get married to some one whom you hate…after you wipe the tears of many and when there is no one to see your tears… Then there is one who is at your shore asking “my children have you got anything… and he will say Cast your net over the right side…What is this right side… this right side is the side of your goodness, the right side of your faith, your compassion, your love …forget about the past sinful life and cast your net to your right side…to the side of Jesus Christ.
Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future. Many of the greatest saints of the Catholic Church were at one time great sinners. Simply consider the sins of David, Paul, and Augustine. Nevertheless, they, like many others, were able to turn their lives around and love even more.
In the second letter to Timothy we read, “We may be unfaithful, but he is always faithful, for he cannot deny his own self” (2 Tim 2:13). Jesus does not lock us in by mistakes of the past or present. We are given room to outgrow the mistakes of the past. Paul wrote, “for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation; the old creation has gone, and now the new one is here.” We are unique creation my dear brothers and sisters and we are worthy as the precious blood of Jesus.
A well-known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20 bill.In the room of 200, he asked, “Who would like this $20 bill?Hands started going up.He said, “I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this.”He proceeded to crumple the dollar bill up.He then asked, “Who still wants it?”Still the hands were up in the air.“Well,” he replied, “What if I do this?”And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now all crumpled and dirty.Now who still wants it?”
“My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson. Because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20. Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way like St Peter and the fearful apostles. We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value in God’s eyes. To Him, dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless to Him.
Did you ever feel like you needed a second chance? Another chance to prove yourself, to put behind you what was in order to embrace what is and what will be? For us as Christians, as believers, our whole faith is based upon a belief in the second chance. Isn’t that why he died on the cross, a horrible suffering and death, to redeem us sinners and give us a second chance
When Jesus asks, “do you love me,” he is asking the question knowing our history, our weaknesses, our failures, our sins. And when he says “feed my lambs, feed my sheep,” he is giving us a second chance, a responsibility to do something for him, despite those same failures. Remember his words, “whatever you do for the least of my brothers and sisters, you do for me.” It’s a second chance.
We spend our whole lives wondering, “Does God love me?” But we’ve got it all wrong. Yes, God loves each one of us. God just wants to be with us, to make breakfast for us, to enjoy us. But God is the one with a question. The gentle, risen, vulnerable Jesus asks us, “Do you love me? Do you truly love me?” That is the question we need to hear. He wants to know if we love him. So how are we going to answer him? We can say quickly, “Yes, Jesus I love you,” but St. Ignatius advises that love is shown in deeds, not in words, so we have to show Jesus that we love him by doing what he says, by putting love into practice, and as Dorothy Day liked to say, “Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing.”
When they came to the seashore Jesus is waiting there for them to give them a good breakfast…with the love of a mother. When in your life if you think there is no one there waiting for you? Believe me there is some one always waiting for you with the prepared breakfast. That is the Risen Christ.
There must be a reason why Jesus chose Peter to be the head of His Apostles. He trusted Peter and knew that he would return loving even more. Perfect people do not exist. We are all sinners. God always chooses the weak in order to bring about great tasks. People who recognize their weaknesses, sinfulness and limitations are humble. Humility allows them to rely on God’s grace and not on their own capabilities. The arrogant do not allow God to work in their lives, or through them, in the lives of others.
Jesus asked the difficult question today to Peter and each one of us “Do you love me?’ This is not a test from Jesus, which Peter has to worry about getting the right answer. It is a way of Jesus telling Peter, and us, that being his disciple is not simply about what you know, but how you live. A new beginning can take place when we realize a life of faith is not only learned, but also lived. After each time when Jesus forgives us our sins and he ask us do you love me. What answer we will give to Him???
There is always a caring and loving God waiting for us.
My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
A new beginning is possible every day of your life. That is the promise Jesus makes at that breakfast. A new beginning is always possible. In order for a new beginning to take place in our lives, we have to do what Peter did; JUMP IN. In the eyes of the world, Peter was one big old failure. He left his job to follow this guy named Jesus who gets himself killed. Big waste of time, during which Peter acted like a coward and winds up back at his old job. He went back to his old habit. He went back to the place that he had left behind. To the same seashore and to the same boat. It could happen to any one of us. God called us to a higher destiny but after sometimes when everything seems to be out of control we go back to the same situations where we came from. Seven expert fishermen worked the whole night in a small lake where there are lots of fish but they got nothing. When they failed there comes the merciful loving and caring Jesus for their help. Notice what Peter did. He doesn’t analyze; doesn’t think boy Jesus must be mad at me. He jumps in. You do not have to be trapped by your own sin, your disappointment, your fear of what will Jesus think. A new beginning will happen if you jump in.
When you feel everything is a failure. When no one really understand you. When you really started thinking that your life itself is a failure and useless and you started leaving everything behind, there comes a loving and caring God at your sea shore as a rising sun. We all face different situations of Peter and the Apostles. This is the beauty of the Gospel. It is alive and it is speaking about us now. We would be making a terrible mistake if we listened to tonight’s Gospel, believing it was only intended for Peter. Its message is for us.
When we prayed and prayed for years and nothing happened we are fed up. When you wait and wait for a job opening and all the doors are closed to you, when some one whom you loved just dumped you and get married to some one whom you hate…after you wipe the tears of many and when there is no one to see your tears… Then there is one who is at your shore asking “my children have you got anything… and he will say Cast your net over the right side…What is this right side… this right side is the side of your goodness, the right side of your faith, your compassion, your love …forget about the past sinful life and cast your net to your right side…to the side of Jesus Christ.
Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future. Many of the greatest saints of the Catholic Church were at one time great sinners. Simply consider the sins of David, Paul, and Augustine. Nevertheless, they, like many others, were able to turn their lives around and love even more.
In the second letter to Timothy we read, “We may be unfaithful, but he is always faithful, for he cannot deny his own self” (2 Tim 2:13). Jesus does not lock us in by mistakes of the past or present. We are given room to outgrow the mistakes of the past. Paul wrote, “for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation; the old creation has gone, and now the new one is here.” We are unique creation my dear brothers and sisters and we are worthy as the precious blood of Jesus.
A well-known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20 bill.In the room of 200, he asked, “Who would like this $20 bill?Hands started going up.He said, “I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this.”He proceeded to crumple the dollar bill up.He then asked, “Who still wants it?”Still the hands were up in the air.“Well,” he replied, “What if I do this?”And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now all crumpled and dirty.Now who still wants it?”
“My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson. Because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20. Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way like St Peter and the fearful apostles. We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value in God’s eyes. To Him, dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless to Him.
Did you ever feel like you needed a second chance? Another chance to prove yourself, to put behind you what was in order to embrace what is and what will be? For us as Christians, as believers, our whole faith is based upon a belief in the second chance. Isn’t that why he died on the cross, a horrible suffering and death, to redeem us sinners and give us a second chance
When Jesus asks, “do you love me,” he is asking the question knowing our history, our weaknesses, our failures, our sins. And when he says “feed my lambs, feed my sheep,” he is giving us a second chance, a responsibility to do something for him, despite those same failures. Remember his words, “whatever you do for the least of my brothers and sisters, you do for me.” It’s a second chance.
We spend our whole lives wondering, “Does God love me?” But we’ve got it all wrong. Yes, God loves each one of us. God just wants to be with us, to make breakfast for us, to enjoy us. But God is the one with a question. The gentle, risen, vulnerable Jesus asks us, “Do you love me? Do you truly love me?” That is the question we need to hear. He wants to know if we love him. So how are we going to answer him? We can say quickly, “Yes, Jesus I love you,” but St. Ignatius advises that love is shown in deeds, not in words, so we have to show Jesus that we love him by doing what he says, by putting love into practice, and as Dorothy Day liked to say, “Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing.”
When they came to the seashore Jesus is waiting there for them to give them a good breakfast…with the love of a mother. When in your life if you think there is no one there waiting for you? Believe me there is some one always waiting for you with the prepared breakfast. That is the Risen Christ.
There must be a reason why Jesus chose Peter to be the head of His Apostles. He trusted Peter and knew that he would return loving even more. Perfect people do not exist. We are all sinners. God always chooses the weak in order to bring about great tasks. People who recognize their weaknesses, sinfulness and limitations are humble. Humility allows them to rely on God’s grace and not on their own capabilities. The arrogant do not allow God to work in their lives, or through them, in the lives of others.
Jesus asked the difficult question today to Peter and each one of us “Do you love me?’ This is not a test from Jesus, which Peter has to worry about getting the right answer. It is a way of Jesus telling Peter, and us, that being his disciple is not simply about what you know, but how you live. A new beginning can take place when we realize a life of faith is not only learned, but also lived. After each time when Jesus forgives us our sins and he ask us do you love me. What answer we will give to Him???
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