Homily for the
3d Sunday of Easter
May 4, 2025
John 21: 1-19
The Fountains, Tuckahoe,
N.Y.
Our Lady of the Assumption,
Bronx
“Jesus said to Simon
Peter, ‘Feed my sheep’” (John 21: 17).
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| Christ Appears on the Shore of the Sea of Tiberias (James Tissot) |
Last Sunday we heard St. John’s account of the Risen Lord Jesus’ 1st 2 appearances to his apostles, which took place in the upper room (20:19-29), the same place where they’d celebrated the Last Supper. Jesus had appeared earlier to Mary Magdalene outside the empty tomb (20:11-18).
This morning St. John
reports Jesus’ 3d appearance to the apostles—not all 11 (Judas hasn’t been
replaced yet) but only 7 of them. It
takes place at the Sea of Galilee, which St. John today calls the Sea of
Tiberias (21:1). The story has 2 parts;
3 if you add a further little episode (21:20-23) that isn’t part of today’s gospel
reading.
In the 1st part, the 7
apostles, led by Simon Peter, have experienced a nite of empty fishing
nets. Showing up, unrecognized at dawn, Jesus
directs them so that suddenly they make an incredible catch—“153 large fish,”
St. John tells us (21:11). This
signifies that the Church directed by Christ achieves its purpose of saving
souls for God. (One theory is that 153
counts the number of tribes and nations known at the time John was writing his
Gospel.) In a similar story told in St.
Luke’s Gospel (5:1-11), Jesus had told Simon, “From now on you’ll be catching
people” instead of fish (5:10). Simon’s
boat has become a symbol of the Church.
This boat is the means by which Christ chooses to bring people to
himself, to forgive sins and lead us to eternal life.
The 2d part of the story
concerns Peter in particular. In these
weeks when Peter’s chair in Rome is empty, the story has special relevance. Thru the college of cardinals, the Holy
Spirit will soon reveal whom God wants to become the 266th successor of St.
Peter as bishop of Rome, the Pope.
As you know, after Jesus was arrested Peter had denied 3
times that he knew Jesus. He was afraid
he might be arrested and prosecuted too.
Now at the lakeside Jesus asks him 3 times whether he loves him, and 3
times Peter affirms that he does, getting “distressed,” St. John says, by the
3d time. Each time Jesus had responded
to Peter’s “yes” by charging him to tend and feed his flock—the rest of the
apostles and all the other disciples.
Jesus was making Peter the chief shepherd, the primary pastor, of his
Church. Thus in our 1st reading this
morning (Acts 5:27-32,40-41) we heard Peter, fearless now and aware of the Holy
Spirit’s presence, proclaim the resurrection of Jesus and the forgiveness of
sins before the Jewish leaders, the very men who’d put Jesus to death.
And now we’re waiting for
a new St. Peter, the next primary pastor of Jesus’ Church. The new Pope will have the same apostolic
charge that was given to Peter: “Feed my
sheep.” Nourish my flock with the truth
of the Gospel; nourish them with sound moral and doctrinal teaching; give them
the example of courage and humility typical of Jesus himself, which we saw very
much in St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict, and Pope Francis as well as other
recent Holy Fathers.
In the final verses of
this 2d part of today’s gospel, Jesus foretells Peter’s fate: “When you grow old, you’ll stretch out your
hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you don’t want to
go.” St. John adds, “He said this
signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God” (21:18-19). St. John, writing at the end of the 1st
century, knew that Peter had been bound and led to death by crucifixion. Peter was crucified on the Vatican hill, one
of Rome’s 7 hills, and he was buried in a nearby cemetery.
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| The Martyrdom of St. Peter (Lionello Spada) |
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