The
Third Sunday of Easter (B)
Dear brothers and sisters,
Today, we hear the Apostle Saint
Peter proclaim the truth of Jesus Christ to the people of Jerusalem. “The
author of life you put to death,” he said, “but God raised him from the dead;
of this we are witnesses” (Acts 3:15). In the discovery of the Lord’s burial
clothes - but not of his body - and in the various encounters with the Risen
Lord and the bestowal of the Holy Spirit, something changed in Saint Peter. No
longer was he a man who cared more for his safety than for his loyalty to his
Master, nor was he any longer afraid of the crowds but instead proclaimed the
truth of the Christian faith to them. Why? He changed because he finally gave
his heart over to Jesus. I might say he gave his entire heart over to Jesus,
but then I would be arguing with Saint Augustine of Hippo.
Saint Augustine noticed that when
Jesus asked for something to eat, the Apostles gave him not a whole fish, but
only “a piece of baked fish” (Luke 24:42). Being intrigued by these two
details, the piece of cooked fish, he wanted to know why. He concluded that
They
offered him what they had: a portion of grilled fish [various translations
translate the manner of cooking differently]. Grilled fish means martyrdom,
faith proved by fire. Why is it only a portion? Paul says, “If I deliver my
body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing” (I Corinthians 13:3).
Imagine a complete body of martyrs. Some suffer because of love, while others
suffer out of pride. Remove the pride portion, offer the love portion. That is
the food for Christ. Give Christ his portion. Christ loves the martyrs who
suffered out of love.[1]
When the Lord first predicted his
Passion and Death, Saint Peter gave the portion of his pride to the Lord when
he told him, “No such thing shall ever happen to you” (Matthew 16:22). The giving
of his pride earned him a stern rebuke from the Lord: “Get behind me, Satan”
(Matthew 16:23)! In the end, however, Saint Peter gave the portion of his love
to the Lord when he gave his life for the sake of his name. What portion have
we given to the Lord?
Saint Anthony of Padua had a
slightly different, though not unrelated, reading of the detail of the cooked
fish. Recognizing that each of us is called to be as another Christ because we
have been joined to him in Baptism, the Doctor of the Gospels said:
The
“broiled fish” is the Redeemer who suffered, who was caught in the waters of
the human race by the hook of death, and “broiled” at the time of his Passion;
and he, too, is the honeycomb for us in today’s Resurrection. The honeycomb is
in the wax, as the divinity is in the humanity. In this eating is signified
that he takes them, in his body, to eternal rest, who, when they suffer trials
for God’s sake, do not depart from the joy of eternal sweetness. Those who are
“broiled” here, will there be satisfied with sweetness.[2]
The Lord Jesus takes in those who know
him; he takes in those who keep his commandments and his word (cf. I John 2:3-5).
If we wish to “look forward in
confident hope to the rejoicing of the day of resurrection,” we cannot be afraid
to be “broiled” here; we cannot be afraid of “faith proved by fire.”[3] If
we wish the Lord to let the light of his face shine on us and put gladness into
our hearts for eternity, then, like Saint Peter, we must give the Lord the full
portion of our love (cf. Psalm 4:7 and 8). What is more, we must not be afraid
of raising our voices and proclaiming, “Repent, therefore, and be converted,
that your sins may be wiped away” (Acts 3:19).
The proclamation of the fullness of
the Gospel today is repugnant to many members of our society. Many resist – or even
oppose - his teachings on marriage, the dignity of all human life, care for the
poor, and even the reality of the Sacraments. Because this is becoming increasingly
so, we shy away from proclaiming the truth revealed by Jesus Christ and
entrusted to his Church. Because of our pride, because of our concern for how
others think of us, we do not proclaim the Resurrection of the Lord and do not
give him the portion he desires.
Every Sunday and holy day, we recite
together the Creed, the Profession of Faith. Just a few weeks ago at Easter, we
renewed our baptismal promises by answering, “I do,” to the questions posed to us
about our belief, questions taken directly from the Creed, from the faith of
the Church, which comes down to us through Saint Peter and the Apostles. In
doing so, we confessed before God and man that we believe in the Crucified and
Risen Savior and in the means of salvation offered in the Church he established
on the rock of Saint Peter. But what does it mean to believe?
Our word “creed” comes from the Latin
word credo, which means “I believe.” “Some
suggest credo is made up of two
smaller words: cor is the word for
‘heart,’ as in ‘coronary’ or ‘cordially,’ and do means ‘I give’ and is the origin of donate.”[4] To
believe, then, is to make a gift of the heart to Jesus, to give him the portion
he desires, to give him the gift of our love proved even by fire. In his
Passion, Death, and Resurrection, the Lord Jesus made a gift of his heart to
us, even allowing his side to be opened so we might enter into his heart (cf.
John 19:34). Let us in return make a gift of our hearts to him so that our credo, our “I believe,” may not be
spoken in vain. Let us go forth with the joy that comes from being loved by God
to announce the forgiveness of sins in Christ Jesus to everyone we meet so we
might all sing together the joy of Easter: Alleluia!
[1] Saint Augustine of Hippo, Sermon
229J.3
[2] Saint Anthony of Padua, Sermon on
the Resurrection of the Lord, 4. In Sermons for Sundays and Festivals, Vol. IV:
Sermons for Festivals and Indexes, Paul Spilsbury, trans. (Padua: Edizioni
Messagero Padova, 2010), 193.
[3] Collect for the Third Sunday of Easter.
[4] Christopher Carstens, A Devotional Journey into the Mass: How Mass
Can Become a Time of Grace, Nourishment, and Devotion (Manchester, New
Hampshire: Sophia Institute Press, 2017), 46.
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