Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
This is the Gospel of the poor,
liberation for the imprisoned,
sight for the blind,
freedom for the oppressed.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
John 21, 15-19
When they had eaten, Jesus said to Simon Peter, 'Simon son of John, do you love me more than these others do?' He answered, 'Yes, Lord, you know I love you.' Jesus said to him, 'Feed my lambs.'
A second time he said to him, 'Simon son of John, do you love me?' He replied, 'Yes, Lord, you know I love you.' Jesus said to him, 'Look after my sheep.'
Then he said to him a third time, 'Simon son of John, do you love me?' Peter was hurt that he asked him a third time, 'Do you love me?' and said, 'Lord, you know everything; you know I love you.' Jesus said to him, 'Feed my sheep.
In all truth I tell you, when you were young you put on your own belt and walked where you liked; but when you grow old you will stretch out your hands, and somebody else will put a belt round you and take you where you would rather not go.'
In these words he indicated the kind of death by which Peter would give glory to God. After this he said, 'Follow me.'
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
The Gospel passage takes us to the days following the resurrection. The risen Jesus appears for the third time on the shores of the lake of Tiberias. This is the place where Jesus had met the first disciples and called them to follow him. On that same shore, as if to make a new beginning, Jesus encounters them again, after their confusion and scattering. He asks Peter about love three times before entrusting him with the pastoral responsibility for the Church. Jesus knows that the only thing that will keep Peter bound to him forever is not his sense of duty or strength of will, but his desire to repay the limitless love he has received with his own affection. This is why Jesus asks him if he loves him three times in a row, as if to emphasize the fact that this is the essential and continuous question. Jesus' request for love never ends, because love is eternal. And the question is not only directed at Peter. Jesus asks each disciple, “Do you love me?” Love is not just an abstract feeling or something that stops with the relationship between Jesus and the disciple. The love that Jesus asks of Peter is full of responsibility for others. He asks him to “tend” his sheep. Jesus’ love is always a love that takes responsibility for others. Love is never self-referential or separated from Jesus’ plan for salvation. Even in this sense Peter is first: he is the one who teaches us how to love like Jesus and feel responsible for our brothers and sisters. Peter's answer in his dialogue with Jesus is, at first, full of pride and pain, because he thinks the Teacher does not trust him. But Jesus’ insistence overcomes Peter’s resistance and strips bare his weakness, making him feel his deep need to entrust himself once again to Jesus, so that he might learn what it means to love with all his heart, all his mind, and all his strength. Jesus’ next works offer a glimpse of the apostle’s future: “When you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” Peter will at last find his steadfastness which will not rest on the strength of his spirit, as he first thought, but on his ability to trust in the Lord completely, letting himself be guided by him to places he could never have imagined. This is the fulfilment of the prophecy of a fisherman who will be able to use the net of the Gospel to attract crowds of men and women to the Lord. But the work of a pastor is not free of the cross. So it was for Jesus, and so it is for his disciples. Peter’s path is the path for every disciple who wants to follow the Gospel: only with Jesus can we have true life, a life which also includes suffering. Peter does not know where he will end nor by what roads. He knows he will have to suffer, but his trust in the Teacher’s love gives him the ability to respond again to the invitation that he had first heard on those same shores: “Follow me!”
Prayer is the heart of the life of the Community of Sant'Egidio and is its absolute priority. At the end of the day, every the Community of Sant'Egidio, large or small, gathers around the Lord to listen to his Word. The Word of God and the prayer are, in fact, the very basis of the whole life of the Community. The disciples cannot do other than remain at the feet of Jesus, as did Mary of Bethany, to receive his love and learn his ways (Phil. 2:5).
So every evening, when the Community returns to the feet of the Lord, it repeats the words of the anonymous disciple: " Lord, teach us how to pray". Jesus, Master of prayer, continues to answer: "When you pray, say: Abba, Father". It is not a simple exhortation, it is much more. With these words Jesus lets the disciples participate in his own relationship with the Father. Therefore in prayer, the fact of being children of the Father who is in heaven, comes before the words we may say. So praying is above all a way of being! That is to say we are children who turn with faith to the Father, certain that they will be heard.
Jesus teaches us to call God "Our Father". And not simply "Father" or "My Father". Disciples, even when they pray on their own, are never isolated nor they are orphans; they are always members of the Lord's family.
In praying together, beside the mystery of being children of God, there is also the mystery of brotherhood, as the Father of the Church said: "You cannot have God as father without having the church as mother". When praying together, the Holy Spirit assembles the disciples in the upper room together with Mary, the Lord's mother, so that they may direct their gaze towards the Lord's face and learn from Him the secret of his Heart.
The Communities of Sant'Egidio all over the world gather in the various places of prayer and lay before the Lord the hopes and the sufferings of the tired, exhausted crowds of which the Gospel speaks ( Mat. 9: 3-7 ), In these ancient crowds we can see the huge masses of the modern cities, the millions of refugees who continue to flee their countries, the poor, relegated to the very fringe of life and all those who are waiting for someone to take care of them. Praying together includes the cry, the invocation, the aspiration, the desire for peace, the healing and salvation of the men and women of this world. Prayer is never in vain; it rises ceaselessly to the Lord so that anguish is turned into hope, tears into joy, despair into happiness, and solitude into communion. May the Kingdom of God come soon among people!
For the sick, in memory of the dead, for peace
