Patrick Comerford
Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (20 April 2025) and continuing through Ascension Day until the Day of Pentecost or Whit Sunday on Sunday next (8 June 2025). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today recalls Ini Kopuria, Founder of the Melanesian Brotherhood, 1945.
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, reading today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
John 21: 15-19 (NRSVA):
15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’ 16 A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’ 17 He said to him the third time, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep. 18 Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ 19 (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, ‘Follow me.’
Today’s Reflection:
The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (John 17: 20-26) moves forward from our recent readings from Christ’s ‘Farewell Discourse’ at the Last Supper (John 14: 1 to 16: 33) and his prayer to the Father as the High Priestly Prayer (John 17: 1-26) to the post-Resurrection appearances.
This morning’s reading was also part of the Easter Gospel reading (John 21: 1-19) at the Eucharist on the Third Sunday of Easter (4 May 2025), and provides the setting by the shore of Tiberias, where the Risen Christ is with the disciples as they catch water in the lake. That reading is often divided into two parts: we read the first part (verses 1-14) on the Friday of Easter Week (25 April 2025); the second part (verses 15-19) was the Gospel reading read at the funeral Mass of Pope Francis the following day (26 April 2025).
In today’s reading, the Risen Christ has three questions that he puts to Peter after breakfast by the shore. They appear a little confused or repetitive in most English translations, but the difference is clear in the original Greek.
In his first two questions to Peter, Christ uses the verb ἀγαπάω (agapáo).
CS Lewis talks in one of his books of The Four Loves:
• The first, στοργή (storgé), is the affection of familiarity;
• the second is φιλία (philia), the strong bond between close friends;
• the third, ἔρως (eros), Lewis identifies not with eroticism but with the word we use when we say we are in love with someone;
• the fourth love is ἀγάπη (agape), the love that takes no account of my own interests, that loves no matter what happens – it is the greatest of loves, it reflects the love of God.
Perhaps, the first time, Christ asks: ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than you and your friends love one another but in the way God loves you?’ (John 21: 15).
But Peter is either evasive or misses the point, and answers with a different verb: φιλέω (phileo): ‘I’m fond of you, I like you like a brother, I agree with you. I’m OK, you’re OK’ (verse 15).
‘OK,’ says Christ, ‘feed the little ones the Good Shepherd welcomes into the fold’ (verse 15).
Then a second time, we can imagine him asking more simply: ‘Simon son of John, do you love me the way God loves you?’ (verse 16).
But Peter once again misses the point, and answers with the verb φιλέω (phileo): ‘I’m fond of you, I like you like a brother, I agree with you. I’m OK, you’re OK’ (verse 16).
‘OK,’ says Christ, ‘look after those in the flock the Good Shepherd tends’ (verse 16).
But then he asks a third question: ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me?’ (verse 17).
Many English-language translations say Peter was upset, felt hurt, when Christ asked him a third time. We might be tempted to think this is because he was asked the same question repetitively, three times, that his answer was not listened to the first or second time round.
But this third time, Christ asks a different question, using Peter’s verb φιλέω (phileo), as if to ask: ‘OK Peter, do you love me as your brother?’ (verse 17).
This time around, Peter replies using the same word Christ uses in his third question. But, more importantly, he confesses Jesus as Lord (verse 17), as Lord of everything. This confession of faith comes the third time round from the disciple who earlier denied Christ three times (see John 18). And Christ then asks him to feed the whole flock, all the sheep of the Good Shepherd, lambs, ewes, lost ones, found ones, white sheep, black sheep, fluffy sheep, bedraggled and dirt-covered sheep – the whole lot (21: 17).
The disciples do not recognise Jesus as he stands on the beach just after daybreak (verse 4). But despite their initial blindness, their initial failings, their initial denials, God continues to call them.
And so too with us. God calls us in all our unworthiness to feed his lambs, to tend his sheep, to feed his sheep, not just the little ones, not just the big ones.
Do you love him enough, as he loves you, to see this as enough fame to bask in?
Do you love him enough to feed his little ones when others want to ignore them, despise them, call them racist names, see their children as extra added burdens, want to send them back?
Do you love him enough to see this as the benchmark against which you and I, society, the Church, priests and people together, all we are involved in, mark how we relate to the myriad, the thousands and thousands, to all living life?
Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Today’s Prayers (Friday 6 June 2025):
The new edition of Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), covers the period from 1 July to 20 November 2025. The theme in the prayer diary this week (1-7 June) is ‘Volunteers’ Week’ and was introduced on Sunday by Carol Miller, Church Engagement Manager, USPG.
The USPG prayer diary invites us to pray today (Friday 6 June 2025):
Our great God, we ask for your mercy for people living amongst us who are marginalised because of illness or incapacity. Be their Healer; help us to show compassion.
The Collect:
O God the King of glory,
you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ
with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven:
we beseech you, leave us not comfortless,
but send your Holy Spirit to strengthen us
and exalt us to the place where our Saviour Christ is gone before,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Eternal God, giver of love and power,
your Son Jesus Christ has sent us into all the world
to preach the gospel of his kingdom:
confirm us in this mission,
and help us to live the good news we proclaim;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Risen, ascended Lord,
as we rejoice at your triumph,
fill your Church on earth with power and compassion,
that all who are estranged by sin
may find forgiveness and know your peace,
to the glory of God the Father.
Yesterday’s Reflections
Continued Tomorrow</b>
Today’s Gospel reading is set by the shore after daybreak … early morning on the town beach in Rethymnon after Easter (Patrick Comerford, 2025)
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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