Cycle C - Year II:

10 April 2016: Third Sunday of Easter

(Liturgical color: White)

Gospel: Please read John 21:1-19

Feed my lambs! Tend my sheep!

We are the new "Easter" people as we celebrate with the risen Christ who saved mankind from bondage of sin, and destroyed the hold that death has on all of us. For the Lord's resurrection is our promise of new life, both in this world and in the next.

Thus, our Easter experience should inspire us to hope for a better future, as we approach our national election. It is another chance to save ourselves from patronage politics and the resulting corruptions in public governance.

Let us reflect on the Gospel message.

On the third Sunday of Easter, the Gospel narrates that Peter and his companions went fishing by the Lake of Tiberias. But that night they caught nothing. Then by dawn Jesus appears to them for the the third time after His resurrection but the disciples at first did not recognize Him.

Like in the previous miracle of the big catch of fish in Lake Gennesaret, Jesus again performed a miracle of another big catch of fish, and only then that the disciples realize it was Jesus with them.

At the end of the Gospel narrative, there was a conversation between Jesus and Peter, possibly a slightly uncomfortable one on Peter's part. Because the threefold question from Jesus, "Do you love me?" serves as a reminder of Peter's cowardice and infidelity during the passion when Peter denied Jesus three times.

But Jesus is really rehabilitating Peter as their leader in asking him a threefold confession of love to make up for his threefold denial at the passion. So Jesus gives Peter a job to do, his mission, "Feed my lambs!", "Tend my sheep!" But Jesus also predicted the kind of death that Peter will suffer for our Lord's sake: "...you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go." And so it happened that Peter died a martyr, crucified upside down on a cross on the Vatican hill.

In other words, in the Gospel incident today Jesus has challenged Peter to abandon his work as a fisherman for the greater task of shepherding God's people, the Church.

Then comes the fateful last words of today's Gospel reading, which is addressed not just to Simon Peter but to all of us down the ages who wish to serve the Lord, the invitation to discipleship: "Follow me."

In sum, the Lord also calls each one of us, even in our weaknesses, sinfulness and failings, to love Him above all else. Loving Jesus entails caring for the people He loves and died for. Loving Jesus means embracing His mission of proclaiming God's kingdom on earth and becoming witnesses of God's love by caring for others, especially the poor and marginalized members of our society.

This is a timely message in choosing our leaders comes election day. We must go for the leaders who can lead us, not only through our journey in this world, but more importantly our journey "safely" to our heavenly home. For we are but a pilgrim people, while on earth.

What will be our response? Has our Easter experience given us the confidence to accept our glorified Lord's invitation to all: "Follow me."?

A blessed Sunday to us all. And thank you for a moment with God.

Ad Jesum per Mariam!