There is a stir-craziness that sets in on airplanes. If you’ve ever taken a long flight, you know what I’m talking about. After your first few hours, I think your mind really starts to wrap itself around the reality that you are in a metal tube hurtling through the skies, far from the comfort of solid ground. This is especially true on transatlantic flights. If you’ve been on one of those, you know they’re the worst!
I remember my first transatlantic flight very well. In our third year of Theology, approaching our final year before ordination, our class got to take a trip to Rome. So shortly after Christmas, I found myself on a flight to the Eternal City. It was a gigantic airplane, one of those with 8 seats across: two on each side and four in the middle. If I remember correctly, I was in one of the interior seats in the middle four. Even though I knew it was going to be a long haul, I went into it optimistically because we each had our own entertainment screen. I figured I’d watch a few movies and we’d be there! Oh, how wrong I was. After my second several-hour movie, I decided to check the little flight tracker feature on my screen. After TWO movies, we weren’t even halfway there! The little animated plane on the screen seemed to be stationery above the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It was about a nine hour flight and we were only about 4 hours into it. I will never forget the intense feeling of restlessness that came over me. I had to get up out of my seat. I remember taking trips to the bathroom not because I had the need to go, but just to stretch my legs and have a change of scenery. After those first two movies, I found that my appetite was completely gone for movies.
Maybe some of you can identify with this restlessness. There are times in life when we come to realize that the things of this world have a limited ability to satisfy. Sure, a great steak dinner makes my mouth water, but I don’t think it would if I had steak every night for a whole month. On that plane over the Atlantic, I discovered that endless movie-watching would not cure my restlessness. I longed for something more than entertainment to pass the time.
I had the exact opposite experience after we landed. In Rome, our group had the privilege of taking what is called the Scavi Tour. This takes you into the excavated Roman streets below what is now St. Peter’s basilica. Down below the basilica is a grave dating back to the time of the apostles, and beside that grave is a small space that was once hidden in the wall. It is believed that the grave once contained the bones of St. Peter, and during a time of persecution, Christians moved the bones of the first pope into a hidden niche in the wall to prevent vandals from desecrating his remains. There in that niche, they sat for many years until they were discovered by archeologists who were allowed to excavate below the basilica in the 1930s. They found the bones without realizing that they were St. Peter’s and put them in a box which went into storage for several decades. Only much later did an archaeologist notice that the wall which had contained the hidden bones was covered in ancient graffiti from Christians indicating that St. Peter was there. They put it together that these bones were not just any bones. So now they are back in that niche and you can go and pray at the grave of St. Peter, right below the great Basilica dedicated to his name!
I will always remember the peace and joy that filled my heart as we knelt in prayer by St. Peter’s bones! I could have stayed there for hours. Other groups were waiting for their turn, so we had to move on after only a few minutes, but those minutes were profound and very full. There where the great Saint Peter’s body had been laid to rest, my heart was at peace.
St. Augustine famously said, “You have made us for yourself O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” I think that you would all probably agree that we find ourselves in times of restlessness. So many of us go through life in a state of spiritual restlessness not unlike the restlessness I experienced on the plane over the Atlantic. We try to forget about the restlessness, try to calm it with a million different earthly distractions, but nothing works for long.
Brothers and sisters, the Father wants to speak to each of our hearts this Sunday. Through the Son He sent, the Son who died and rose out of His great love for us, He calls out to our hearts to invite us to the peace and rest of being with Him, of walking in His grace.
Look at the disciples in today’s Gospel: they’ve seen so much. They were there when Jesus, with a word, raised Lazarus from the grave. They saw Him open the eyes of the blind. They experienced the power of His words when He told the woman caught in adultery that her sins were forgiven. They saw Jesus endure the rejection of the crowds. Most of them stayed away from the cross, but they probably heard from John, Mary and those who stayed about Jesus’ final words, about His final breath. They had experienced the incredible glory of Jesus appearing to them risen and alive! In fact, St. John specifically reminds us that this is the third time that Jesus appeared to them risen and alive.
But in spite of all these amazing experiences, the disciples were restless. Their hearts weren’t at peace! How do we know? Because they went back to their old habits. Instead of going out and shouting about the resurrection from the rooftops, Peter decided to go back to his former profession. The world is tugging at him, offering him false comfort in his previous comfort zone. Jesus had invited Peter to be a fisher of men, but instead he just went fishing.
Back to his old ways, Simon Peter gets the same results. Just like the empty nets which weren’t filled after a night of fishing, his heart was unsatisfied. There are two kinds of peace: the fleeting peace given by the world and the enduring peace that only comes from the Lord when we follow Him.
So then Jesus shows up. To remind them of the time He first called them to follow Him, He once again blesses them with a miraculous catch of fish. You can immediately see the change in Peter’s heart. Once the beloved disciple tells Peter, “It is the Lord,” he jumps into the water to go see Him! He realizes what he’s been missing.
Jesus meets Peter and the other disciples and shares a meal with them. As they share in this communal meal with Jesus, I have to imagine that their restless and wandering hearts began to be at peace again. Knowing where Peter’s heart was at, Jesus asks him three times if he loves Him. In the original Greek of the New Testament, St. John tells us that Jesus asks Simon if he loves Him with the total, self-giving love signified by the Greek word agape. Simon answers that he loves Jesus, but with another Greek word, one that means a type of brotherly, familial love, philio. So the exchange, in essence, went like this:
“Peter, do you love me with total, self-giving love?” — “I love you with brotherly love.”
“Peter, do you love me with total, self-giving love?” — “I love you with brotherly love.”
The final time, Jesus uses the same term as Peter. He meets Peter where he is at with his love in order to take his heart higher!
“Peter, do you love me with brotherly love?” — “You know everything, you know that I love you as a brother.”
Notice that Jesus connects Peter’s love to the mission He gives him: “feed my lambs,” “tend my sheep,” “feed my sheep.” He is showing Peter that his restless heart which led him to go fishing that night was distracting him from his mission–to serve the sheep in the flock of the Church which Jesus was gathering.
Jesus knows that Peter is weak. He knows that his heart is restlessly searching for peace in all the wrong places, but He also sees who Peter can be with His help. He sees the Pope who will guide the early church steadily and one day, with great love, be crucified upside down because of his faith. With Jesus’ help, Peter will be drawn up into that total, self-giving love that Jesus speaks about! Jesus took the time to talk to Peter, to encourage and strengthen him, to empower him for mission as the chief shepherd of the Church. He gave Peter the grace to love with His self-giving love, as his mission demanded!
All you children receiving First Communion, this is the perfect day for you, because today you get to receive Jesus into yourself for the first time! Jesus has a mission for each of you. A ‘mission’ is something somebody asks you to do. So if I told you that Benny was lost and I needed you to help me find him, that would be giving you a mission. (Don’t worry, Benny is fine!) Some day He will call you to be a mom or a dad, some He will call to be a priest or religious sister. That will be your mission when you get older. But even now He has a special mission for you, one that is difficult, but doable! He is giving you the mission to love Him and love others!
The Eucharist lets you have Jesus inside you in a powerful way, so you can complete that mission. Jesus can help you to love your classmates, even if they are being mean. Jesus can help you tell the truth, even though it might get you in trouble. He can help you listen to your Mom and Dad, even if they are telling you to do something you don’t want to do, like clean your room. So my challenge for you is to stay close to Jesus. I have Holy homework for you to help you do this. There are three things I want you to do:
- Receive Jesus in the Eucharist every Sunday
- Pray and talk to Jesus every day
- Read a little of the Bible every day with an adult
Doing these three things will help you to hold Jesus close in your heart.
Parents, I have a word of challenge for all of you. We live in a culture that doesn’t put a high value on faith, and it is easy to get sucked into that mentality. At your children’s Baptism, you made a solemn promise to raise your children in faith. This is something very serious. When you stand before the judgment seat of Christ, He is not going to judge you on how many activities you were able to have your child involved in, but on how well you taught them to love Him and love their neighbor. A huge part of this is making sure that they are fed on Jesus Himself in the Eucharist every Sunday. I promise you that you will not regret making the Mass a priority in your family’s life! There’s abundant grace here to help each of you live your mission!
For those of you who may wrestle with the Church’s belief in Jesus’ Real Presence in the Eucharist, let me make an analogy. Think of a violin for a moment. On its own, it’s cool looking, but it doesn’t do much. But in the hands of a musician, it can make beautiful music. Now think of this ordinary bread and wine which we will shortly set on this altar. It will be prayed over by me with the authority I have been given as a priest to make Jesus present in the way He was present at the last Supper. Think of the power of Jesus’ words. As God with us, when He spoke human words, like, “Rise, take up your mat and walk,” they did something! Jesus changes reality by His speech, because He speaks with the authority of God Himself.
And that is what our faith is in–the power of the Words of Jesus to change reality. So we trust that Jesus can use the words of the priest spoken over these simple elements to bring about a profound change in them. In the hands of Jesus, these simple elements are changed! The Holy Spirit wants to open the eyes of your hearts to see beyond the appearance of bread and wine which remains after the prayers at the altar, to see the reality of Jesus’ Body and Blood which comes into being because of the power of Jesus’ words: “This is my body,” “This is the cup of my blood.” Brothers and sisters, I invite you this Sunday and every Sunday to take Jesus at His word. Because by the word of the One through whom the whole universe was created, this simple bread and wine becomes infinitely more than it was before, it truly becomes Jesus’ Body and Blood to nourish us with the fullness of God Himself! This food strengthens us for our mission!
Think of where you are in your heart. Is your heart restlessly searching the things of this world for peace that only Jesus can bring? Jesus wants to come and meet you and me at this incredible table that He sets for us. He wants to remind you that you are His beloved son, His beloved daughter, purchased with the price of His Blood! He wants to show you how to fulfill the mission He has given you, to allow His Self-giving love to flow through you to your spouse, children, grandchildren, friends and co-workers. He wants to bring your heart to peace in Him. But He asks that you stay with Him; that you take time to be fed by the Food that is Him every Sunday; that you listen every day to the Words He speaks to you in Scripture; that you take time to respond to Him in prayer; that you lean on the support of your brothers and sisters in Christ.
All of these things–the Eucharist, Scripture, prayer, community–these give us that stability of heart, that strong center from which we can live our mission. Without them, we are prone to that interior restlessness that robs us of our peace and distracts us from our mission.
At the judgment, the Lord will not demand an account of how well you’ve done with all your worldly hobbies and distractions, but of how well you’ve loved Him and loved your neighbor. This is what life is about! Our task is serious, and the consequences are eternal ruin if we ignore our mission! So I invite you, right now, to open your heart in a fresh way, or maybe even for the first time, to the Lord’s loving and challenging invitation: “Follow me.”
+ Father, thank you for making us your beloved sons and daughters through the grace of Christ. Thank you for the mission this calls us to. Lord Jesus, help us to be open to your grace so that we can be equipped for the mission you give each of us. Holy Spirit, help us recognize when our hearts are distracted from our mission, so that we might return to the Lord and His grace and love. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Risen Lord. Amen. +