HOMILY PRONOUNCED BY MONS. DIEGO MONROY PONCE; GENERAL AND EPISCOPAL VICAR OF GUADALUPE, RECTOR OF THE SANCTUARY.
III SUNDAY OF EASTER

Sunday, April 22nd. of 2007

PETER AND JOHN BEFORE THE RISEN LORD

Dear broters: we walk in the glorious time of the Eater. Still this Sunday, we stop in the contemplation of the events through which the Risen Lord Jesus presented himself before His apostles and disciples. The experience of these days that followed that Sunday, the first of the all Sundays, it is extended until our days, because we do not leave from the astonishment that the Lord makes to show us the love that He has for us. We can not stop recognizing this great event that our faith sustains. Alleluia!

The Scripture invites us to consider the consequences of the repercussion that the resurrection had in the Church with the mystery of the Eucharist to the center of its being. I invite you to approach us to the texts by focusing our attention in two personages that are very significant in the mystery of the Church: Peter and John.

As we can realize, brothers, the first reading of this paschal time is always taken from the book of the Acts of the Apostles. We know that this labor of Luke has as purpose giving us the news of “the diffusion of the God´s word, that will be taken by the witnesses of the Risen One, from Jerusalem, the center, to the borders of the Earth”. (Francois Bovon). Consequently, in the reading from today, we have seen how the apostles who were leaded by Peter and were moved by the Spirit, they sent themselves filled of a great courage to announce with their testimony, that Christ, to whom the Jews killed hanging Him of the cross, has been risen by the power of God, and He has been exalted by Him as the Redeemer and Lord.

In the Book of the Revelation, Saint John, who is the same author of the Gospel, shows us Jesus as the true enthroned lamb to whom the whole universe (represented in the elders and in the living beings) adores.

Saint John gave us in his Gospel, this Sunday one more time, in very alive scenes, the activity of the risen Jesus between his apostles and his disciples. Most of the experts in the Gospel of Saint John is agreed with that the chapter 21, that today we have listened, was added to the primitive writing. Although they are not in agreement about the identity of the author, there is a great probability that it is about an addition very close to the primitive writing. When we ask ourselves about the purpose of this addition, and analyzing the scheme of the chapter, we can suspect that it was made to leave well clear three teachings:

The first one is that, if we do not count with the presence of the risen Christ, any action of the disciples will be useless and the results are fatigue and frustration. So, my dear brothers, in this way we can understand that they strive the whole night in fishing without catching nothing, because they have been without Christ. In the context of the Scripture, the sea can be understood as a symbol of the forces of the bad that opposes radically Christ, and the night as the darknesses that reject Him as light of the world. When the day arrives, it means, ligth, Jesus makes himself present and from the shore of the lake He calls to them, and He orders that they throw again the net to the right side of their boat. The first one that recognized Him, after the miraculous fishing, is John the loved disciple, as the author identifies himself. But Peter (like competing with John) is the first one that jumped into the water to go to Him.

Brothers, crossing the scenes, we are immediately before one scene with a great eucharistic message in which Jesus, like always, as the host invites them to eat from which he had prepared. We can not avoid the recognition of that in this passage Saint John has been teaching to us that the eucharistic presence of Jesus is very important in the Church, and it is the culmination of the tacit recognition of the disciples who nor dare to ask Him for His identity.

The second teaching of the Gospel is that Jesus wanted, by his sovereign will, to entrust to Peter the pastoral care of His ewes and lambs, it means of His family, the Church, the rising community. Peter, the one that denied Him for three times and the one that wanted to persuaded Him (in a very critical moment) to not assume His mission; the one that left Him at His last moments, he is the one that Jesus chose for the most important mission. Jesus did not do to Peter any reproach for all that, and He probably could have done it for much more, but He only asked Him to declare His love and His affection, (the text uses the verbs agapáo= to love, and philéo= to want). It means, Jesus only asked him to make Him to know how Peter is filled with love of God, and of the human affection that it makes him able to support his fidelity in the service that He entrusted him.

My brothers, it seems that the only thing that Jesus asks is fidelity to all the tests to continue His mission in the Church. When Peter answered with the verb “to love”, it would seem that he recognizes in humility not to be sure about the true love. Not even he aswered with a clear and decided “Yes”, but he appeals to the knowledge of Jesus: Lord, You know everything, you know well that I love you. “The labor of guarding for the whole flock was entrusted to Peter under the sign of love to Jesus” (Léon-Dufour). In the catholic Church is affirmed that this designation is the act of founding a very specific service: the one “to express and to maintain the cohesion of the believers” (L.D.) even more, it is taught to us that this service maintain itself in the Church in the person of the Pope.

The third teaching is connected with the apostle John. I think that the evangelist represents the word with which the Church has to give testimony of which it preaches, as the evangelist indicates insistently, specially in the versicle 24 that does not appear in the text that we have listened: this is the disciple that gives testimony of these things, and that he has put them in writing; and we know that his testimony is true.

This Sunday, my brothers, is a very opportune occasion to reflect, on the one hand, in the centrality of the Eucharist in the life of the Church as constituent element of its being, because it is in it where we find to Jesus (in a perfect way) in the communion of love with God and with the brothers; on the other hand, to appreciate, and to value the irreplaceable
function of the Bishop of Rome that, as temporary and supreme Pastor of the Church, and with his love and fidelity to the Lord and to his brothers, executes with joy and confidence. Let us pray for the Pope Benedict XVI in order to God grants abundantly His Spirit to him to serve Christ in His people, specially with his word and his testimony.

May our little girl and sweet mother, Holy Mary of Guadalupe...