The Triduum—Holy Week—in the explanation of the Passion, death and Resurrection of Christ was all about the unconditional love of God for all of us, through His Son Jesus.

Today we hear of Christ’s focus on love once again—but this love, which is again meant for us all, comes in a restoring act of Peter through God’s mercy.

Today’s gospel has some pretty interesting parts to it—parts that are meant to make us ponder what Christ is asking of us and how we are going to respond to being both loved and challenged in our own faith lives…if we truly wish to be Christ’s disciples.

Last week the gospel evidenced Christ revealing Himself to His apostles in the upper room. Imagine it, Jesus appears risen from the dead to His apostles, think of the excitement that must have stirred up in them; but, now this week those same apostles who witnessed the power of God in the Risen Christ are simply returning to their old lives and jobs—fishing? Seems a bit odd to me, doesn’t it? After all, if you just witnessed the resurrection of Christ would your first move be to just go back to everyday “way of living”—or would you be so energized and so filled with the Holy Spirit you wouldn’t be on fire and want to tell everyone what you knew? I think we’d all be proclaiming the Good News, for sure.

Each Sunday we memorialize the Easter Resurrection of Christ—and even though we have not literally witnessed the Resurrection—we do all have [an] experience(s) of the love of God in our lives—by our birth, in our families, by all of the blessings we have received, by the very fact that we are alive; and with eyes of faith we can know more. In fact, Christ calls us to be similarly energized by our faith so that we can continue to pass on this Love of God in our marriages, families, work and community.

Bob Dylan noted that Love “…is blowing in the wind.” Let us grab on to that wind—the Holy Spirit—and welcome the breeze-of-faith into our lives to inspire us to be Christ through forgiveness of a family member or friend who has hurt us, by letting us be Christ through the way we seek to right injustices, by caring about and feeding of the hungry, by having concern for the homeless or teaching the ignorant Truth, or even by being Christ in giving of our blessings and sharing them with someone who has none. It is called doing ordinary acts with extraordinary kindness.

Today’s gospel has Jesus call Peter to feed His sheep and tend His lambs. This call also continues in our modern lives. We are asked, like Peter, to imitate Jesus in the world by caring and feeding those who have nothing. We are asked in Love to become a person of Love. To seek righteousness and to not be afraid to do the work of the Lord in our time and place. Notice in today’s gospel that the followers of Jesus are unsuccessful at fishing after a long night of work. Jesus comes, risen from the dead, and instructs them to cast the net over the right side of the boat. And after following His instructions, the disciples are successful. A good lesson for us today. Do we hear the Word of God? Do we listen to His teachings or do we try to amend them to fit our time and place? Someone once said, that even if no one believes or accepts the truth, it is still truth. Our Lord asks us to hear Him and to follow Him. To feed His sheep and tend to His lambs. Will we have the courage and the faith to do that? Will we continue the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ in-and-through His church by being His disciples?