Not long ago our chaplain made the comment: “The Church
celebrates a feast in which we celebrate the Sacred Heart. Have you noticed there
are no feasts that celebrate the sacred brain or the sacred gut?!” The heart is
seen as the center of love.
In the
reading today from St. Peter’s letter, we are exhorted to “love one another
intensely from a pure heart.” Peter knew something about having a pure heart.
Through Peter’s many encounters with Jesus, some of them quite intense he
learned about the meaning of love.
I
think particularly of the encounter between Jesus and Peter occurring post
resurrection. The scene took place “following breakfast.” Jesus asks Peter directly
and deliberately three times “Do you love me?” Asking three times perhaps is a
reminder to Peter of his recent betrayal. Jesus’ response to Peter, however, was
not a reprimand but one of wanting him to take action – a doing of the word.
The first and third time Jesus said “Feed my sheep” and the second time “Tend
my sheep” – behaviors that demonstrate Jesus’ tender hearted love. Acting with
kindness, compassion, patience, doing of the corporal works of mercy are
deeds that reveal one having a pure heart that leads one to greater love of the
Sacred Heart.
Sr. Aileen Bankemper, OSB
Dear Sister, thank you for this good post. Saint Peter is a strong presence in the Gospels. We are allowed to understand his personality and to share in his suffering. Peter's denial of Christ was for him the worst thing he could do, yet in order to serve Christ later, he had to survive = difficult choices. For the early Church under persecution, some of the family needed to deny their faith, simply to continue to serve the faith, to care for others and build the future. Jesus is teaching us that. If Jesus is asking us to love him, he is also asking us to love him where we don't expect him to be, perhaps in that hostile character who persecutes us (who turns into an ally with a kind word from us). God bless!
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