Strengthen Your Brethren - Fr. Louis Bulletin Letter - January 15, 2006
For quite a while I have been trying to come up with a catchy title for this little column that I write for the bulletin each week. "Dear Parishioners" seems rather boring. Unfortunately, my favorite passage in the Scriptures (John 15:16) does not really lend itself to a brief, captivating title! So, it was on to Plan B! It seemed to me that, as Pastor of a parish dedicated to St. Peter, perhaps the title should have some connecting with our patron saint. The scene of the Last Supper came to mind as Jesus exhorted Peter: “Strengthen your brethren” (Luke 22:32). The scene is pregnant with meaning and very touching. On that night before He died, Jesus foretold that Simon Peter—the Rock—would deny Him. “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren” (Luke 21:31-32). Of course, Peter had already faltered allowed fear to overcome him as Jesus beckoned him across the water in the storm (see Matthew 14:22-33). What is more, Jesus rebuked Simon Peter—“Get behind me, Satan!” (Matthew 16:21-23)—for attempting to dissuade Him from going to Jerusalem where He was to suffer rejection and death. After the arrest of Jesus, Simon Peter denied Jesus not once, not twice, but three times, swearing: “I do not know the man!” (Luke 22:54-62). At that moment “Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, ‘Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.’ And he went out and wept bitterly.” (Matthew 26:75). Satan seeks to sift each one of us, especially as we draw closer to Jesus. He seeks to derail our path to Christ as he did with Simon Peter. How often do we turn away from Jesus and His Mystical Body, the Church? How many times to we sin or deny even knowing Christ?
At the Last Supper, however, Jesus not only spoke of Peter’s denial of Him, but, more importantly, that Simon would repent of his sin and turn again (see Luke 22:32) to his loving and merciful Savior. This he did in his encounter with the Risen Christ: “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you” (John 21:17). Do we have that humility to turn back to the Savior, to repent of our sin, to run to meet Him in the Sacrament of Penance (Confession) thereby recovering our true identity as sons and daughters of the Father who is “rich in mercy” (Ephesians 2:4)?
The man chosen to be the Rock upon which Jesus would build His Church—the Rock that sank in the lake, the Rock that set himself as an obstacle along the path to salvation in Jerusalem, the Rock that crumbled at Jesus’ time of trial—was definitively constituted as Rock by his encounter with the Risen Lord: “Feed my lambs…Tend my sheep…Feed my sheep” (John 21:15-17). With this encounter, Jesus equips Simon Peter to live that exhortation of the Last Supper: “Strengthen your brethren” (Luke 22:32). We— who have failed, who have acknowledged our faults, who have repented of our sins and joyfully received the gift of mercy from the Risen Christ—now, in turn, strengthen our brothers and sisters in faith. That is what I seek to do in this column each week—as I teach or reflect on events of our parish, the Church, and the world—all to strengthen you in your faith. And may you, in turn, strengthen one another.
Saint Peter, pray for us! Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!