March 23, 2008 - Easter Sunday
I told Fr. Jack the other day that I was getting forgetful. For the life of me, names don’t stick in my memory. Someone tells me their name, and I walk away for a moment and come back, I forget what their name was. I can’t claim these as senior moments because I’m only 35. And Fr. Jack had reassuring words for me, “Paul, it gets worse when you get older.”
However one of the things we don’t tend to forget is all the boo-boo’s that we’ve done. They may have happened years ago, yet at the right moment, they are conjured up like it just happened. We feel the flash of guilt and shame. Oh how we would love to have selective memory so that we can blot out from our memory all of our mistakes!
Apparently, God has a purpose for these bad memories. He uses them to put us back into our place. He humbles us, popping the balloon of our head before it gets too big. And in the Gospels during this Holy Week, God gives us St. Peter as a great showcase for this. If you remember prior to entering the Passion, Jesus tells Peter that he is the chosen rock on whom the Church will be built on. What a privilege! But that privilege comes with testing. At the Last Supper, Peter tells Jesus that he will follow Jesus wherever he goes and even lay down his life. Peter even brandished his sword to cut off the ear of a servant at the
In today’s Gospel, we find Mary Magdala telling the disciples fantastic news that Jesus’ body was not there at the tomb. Peter and John upon hearing this news runs to the tomb. John outruns Peter and arrives first at the tomb, but curiously does not enter it. Only after Peter arrives and enters, does John enter the tomb. Why does John let Peter enter first? Should it not be John? He was the only disciple who stayed faithfully with Jesus untill his last breath on the cross. So by justice, John should be in the tomb first. But, it was Peter who needed to experience forgiveness and mercy first. Peter needed to experience resurrection from being bound to his guilt and shame for denying Jesus three times. God is trying to teach us through Peter that God’s mercy transcends his justice.
When we experience forgiveness, we are grateful and we have renewed love. The one, who is forgiven much, loves much, as Jesus said in Luke’s Gospel. And Peter experienced this at the tomb. He believed that he could not possibly love Jesus anymore because he was unworthy. But Jesus’ forgiveness wiped away Peter’s guilt and shame. Peter experienced resurrection of his heart; before, his heart rejected Jesus’ love and died; now his heart lives again because he opened it up to receive Jesus’ mercy.
A while ago, I gave a short testimony here in a homily that I experienced conversion. I was involved with New Age in my high school days and rejected God, declaring myself as god instead. It still puzzles me to this day why God pursued me even when I rejected Him. He was willing to come down far into Satan’s camp to rescue me. Oh yes, Satan is real and as his other name, ‘Diablo’ implies, he is a divider—separating families from each other, separating friends, and separating us from God. And his favorite tool is to tempt us to sin. But Jesus’ mercy transcends his justice. Through Jesus’ mercy, Mary Magdala was exorcised of seven demons, St. Peter was restored of his love for Jesus, and
(given at St. Louis King of France)
