1. 3rd Sunday of Easter (C) 04-22-07
Scripture Readings
First Acts of the Apostles 5:27-32, 40b-41
Second Revelation 5:11-14
Gospel John 21:1-19
Prepared by: Fr. Peter John Cameron, O.P.
1. Subject Matter
• Peter’s Yes of love of Christ
• The true meaning of obedience
• The Name of Jesus: the apostles “spoke in the name of Jesus” were “found worthy to suffer
dishonor for the sake of the name”
2. Exegetical Notes
• “Cast the net over the right side of the boat and you will find something” – reminiscent of
Luke 5:1-11; the fruit of their obedience is “one hundred fifty-three large fish.”
• Jn 21:2: “The statement of the ‘togetherness’ at the beginning of the sentence, and the list of
seven disciples, a symbolic representation of disciples as such, continue the theme of the
creation of a new community” (Francis J. Moloney, S.D.B.).
• “the charcoal fire” – the fire on the beach may be meant to be contrasted to Jn 18:3, 18
where it states that those who had gone out to arrest Jesus did so with lanterns and torches
by a charcoal fire.
• “Many have been drawn into the net, but the net is not damaged. The seamless garment
that could not be torn apart may be in the mind of the author” (Moloney).

2. 3. References to the Catechism of the Catholic Church
143 By faith, man completely submits his intellect and his will to God. With his whole being man
gives his assent to God the revealer. Sacred Scripture calls this human response to God, the
author of revelation, quot;the obedience of faith.quot;
144 To obey (from the Latin ob-audire, to quot;hear or listen toquot;) in faith is to submit freely to the
word that has been heard, because its truth is guaranteed by God, who is Truth itself.
1429 St. Peter's conversion after he had denied his master three times bears witness to this.
Jesus' look of infinite mercy drew tears of repentance from Peter and, after the Lord's
resurrection, a threefold affirmation of love for him. The second conversion also has a
communitarian dimension, as is clear in the Lord's call to a whole Church: quot;Repent!quot;
1790 A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were
deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself.
1851 It is precisely in the Passion, when the mercy of Christ is about to vanquish it, that sin most
clearly manifests its violence and its many forms: unbelief, murderous hatred, shunning and
mockery by the leaders and the people, Pilate's cowardice and the cruelty of the soldiers, Judas'
betrayal - so bitter to Jesus, Peter's denial and the disciples' flight. However, at the very hour of
darkness, the hour of the prince of this world, the sacrifice of Christ secretly becomes the source
from which the forgiveness of our sins will pour forth inexhaustibly.
1991 Justification is at the same time the acceptance of God's righteousness through faith in
Jesus Christ. Righteousness (or quot;justicequot;) here means the rectitude of divine love. With
justification, faith, hope, and charity are poured into our hearts, and obedience to the divine will
is granted us.
2087 Our moral life has its source in faith in God who reveals his love to us. St. Paul speaks of
the quot;obedience of faithquot; as our first obligation. He shows that quot;ignorance of Godquot; is the principle
and explanation of all moral deviations. Our duty toward God is to believe in him and to bear
witness to him.
2256 Citizens are obliged in conscience not to follow the directives of civil authorities when they
are contrary to the demands of the moral order. quot;We must obey God rather than menquot; (Acts
5:29).
4. Patristic Commentary and Other Authorities
• St. Augustine: “The Lord, questioning Peter, who from fear had thrice denied him, extracted
from him a threefold declaration of love…. Peter was dead as a result of denying his
Master…. Christ the Lord raised up Peter through Peter’s love for him.”
• St. John Chrysostom: “John mentions the place [the Sea of Tiberias] to show that our Lord
had taken away a good deal of their fear, and that they no longer kept within doors.”

3. • St. Bede: “Peter went to Jesus with the ardor with which he did everything.”
• St. Gregory the Great: “The sea signifies the world, which is tossed about with various
causes of tumults, and the waves of this corruptible life; the shore by its solidity figures the
rest eternal. The disciples then, inasmuch as they were still upon the waves of this mortal
life, were laboring on the sea; but the Redeemer having by his resurrection thrown off the
corruption of the flesh, stood upon the shore.”
• St. Bede: “The fish broiled is Christ who suffered. He deigned to be hid in the waters of
human nature, and to be taken in the net of our night; and having become a fish by the taking
of humanity, became bread to refresh us by his divinity.”
• St. Augustine: “Mystically, the fried [sic] fish is Christ who suffered. And he is the bread that
came down from heaven. To him the Church is united to his body for participation of eternal
bliss.”
• St. Augustine: “While our Lord was being condemned to death, Peter feared, and denied
Jesus. But by his resurrection Christ implanted love in Peter’s heart and drove away fear.
Peter denied, because he feared to die: but when our Lord was risen from the dead, and by
his death destroyed death, what should he fear?”
• St. John Chrysostom: “That which most of all attracts the divine love is care and love for our
neighbor. Our Lord remembers no more Peter’s sin in denying him, or brings that as a
charge against him, but commits to him at once the superintendence over his brethren. ‘If
you love Me, have rule over your brethren, show forth that love which you have evidenced
throughout, and that life which you said you would lay down for Me, lay down for the sheep.’”
• St. John Chrysostom: “Three confessions are made to answer to the three denials; that the
tongue might show as much love as it had fear, and life gained draw out the voice as much
as death threatened.”
• St. Gregory the Great: “In a sacrifice we slay another’s body, whereas by obedience we slay
our own will.”
• St. Thomas Aquinas: “Christ says, ‘Do you love me more than these’ because the more
Peter loves the better he is.”
• Msgr. Luigi Giussani: “The motivation for saying ‘yes’ to something that comes into our life
defeating all preconceptions is beauty…. Morality is born as friendship with God as Mystery
and therefore with Jesus. Man’s relationship with God as mystery and therefore with Jesus
starts and is accomplished in St. Peter’s Yes to Jesus who asked him, ‘Simon, do you love
me?’ Through Peter’s Yes morality is the surprise of a presence to which we adhere in such
a way that the whole of life tends to be conceived through it, in its details and in its globality,
so that it may please the face of that Presence. Therefore, morality for a Christian is loving
adherence….St. Peter did not take as the motive of his love for Christ the fact of having been
forgiven his many defects, his many mistakes, his many betrayals. He did not list his own
mistakes, but, when he found himself face to face with Christ after the resurrection, and when
Christ asked him, ‘Simon, do you love me?’ he answered, ‘Yes.” It is the relationship with
this word, which is the most human and the most divine, which makes us embrace everything
in our daily existence…. What provoked Peter to say Yes is Christ’s charity, which changed
Peter’s remorse at his betrayal into positive sorrow. The remorse of betrayal was transfixed
by Christ’s charity, and the change to positive sorrow is charity as echoed in Peter; echoed in
the sense that Peter accepts it, put into action by him, perhaps without even a thought.

4. Peter’s Yes is the greatest expression of Christ’s redeeming work for man. It is the explosion
of the positivity of Being over the negativity of the falsehood of man’s action…. May we live
this surrender to the Mystery, to Christ, to the mystery that revealed itself in that man, in our
activities, and may we be filled with wonder so as to feel St. Peter’s Yes emerging from the
bottom of our hearts.”
• Fr. Julian Carron: “True immorality is not incoherence but impenetrability. Impenetrability is
the demonic origin of all despair, because not even sin can be an alibi for Someone who
comes close to our ‘I,’ whatever we have done, and asks, ‘Do you love me?’ Someone who
lets himself be overwhelmed cannot but answer like Peter, ‘You know everything, Christ; You
know I love you. All my human fondness is for You, Christ.’ So, everything rests on an
Other: ‘You know everything,’ I don’t have anything I can stand on, my whole ‘I’ rests on
Christ…. Facing his evil, Peter did not experience what was missing; the living presence of
Jesus, in the superabundance of mercy, imposed itself on his remorse. This is what
becomes more powerful than any evil; the grandeur of His living presence becomes more
imposing than any nihilism, through the superabundance of His presence…. When I have
done something very bad, so bad that I am scandalized at myself, what defines me in that
moment? Christ’s embrace of me in baptism, that not even my wrong can undo, whatever
wrong I have done. Nothing I can do can change Christ’s attitude towards me…. I can be as
weak as I like, to the point of being scandalized by myself, but the power of Christ in baptism
is greater, not even my evil can overcome it…. When I am reduced to noting, to the point
that I am ashamed to look at myself, in that moment I can say, ‘What defines me” This
embrace of Christ, this being taken hold of by Christ, which remains after this wrong I have
done, this stupid thing I have done,; and I can start off again.”
• Fr. Stefano Alberto: “Peter’s Yes, as our yes, is the renewal of trust in Jesus—this human
presence that invests us, asking us to follow him not according to our image of justice in
history, but according to his plan, his will. ‘Peter, do you love me?’ ‘Yes Lord, you know I
love you.’”
5. Examples from the Saints and Other Exemplars
• The Quo vadis? legend (summarized by George Edmundson, 1913): “Peter’s friends, so
runs the story, had entreated the Apostle to save his life by leaving the city. Peter at last
consented, but on condition that he should go away alone. But when he wished to pass
the gate of the city, he saw Christ meeting him. Falling down in adoration he says to Him
'Lord, whither goest Thou?' [Latin, quo vadis?] And Christ replied to him 'I am coming to
Rome to be again crucified.' And Peter says to Him 'Lord, wilt Thou again be crucified?'
And the Lord said to him 'Even so, I will again be crucified.' Peter said to Him 'Lord, I will
return and will follow Thee.' And with these words the Lord ascended into Heaven . . .
And Peter, afterwards coming to himself, understood that it was of his own passion that it
had been spoken, because that in it the Lord would suffer. The Apostle then returned with
joy to meet the death which the Lord had signified that he should die.”
• The Carmelite martyrs of Compiegne – In Francis Poulenc’s operatic retelling of the
historical event of the guillotining of 16 Carmelite nuns during the French Revolution

5. Reign of Terror, the story revolves around Blanche de la Force. Blanche is a
pathologically phobic young woman who decides to retreat from the world and enter a
Carmelite convent. When the political situation worsens, Blanche’s brother implores
Blanche to leave the monastery. But she refuses; it is “fear of fear itself” that keeps her
from leaving. The nuns together take a vow of martyrdom. Shortly thereafter, when the
nuns are arrested and condemned to death, Blanche is not with them. It appears she has
run away and deserted them. The nuns go to the guillotine. Then, at the last minute,
Blanche appears, completely free from all fear, and sings Deo patri sit gloria as she
mounts the scaffold, radiant.
• St. Lorenzo Ruiz (+1637): Chinese father, Filipino mother, both Christians. He learned
Chinese and Tagalog from them, Spanish from the Dominicans whom he served as altar
boy and sacristan. Member of the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary. Married layman, and
the father of two sons and a daughter. Journeyed with Dominican missionaries to Japan
where Christians were being persecuted for their faith. The group was soon exposed as
Christian, arrested, and taken to Nagasaki. They were tortured in several ways for days.
Lawrence and the Japanese priest broke at one point, and were ready to renounce their
faith in exchange for release, but after their moment of crisis, they reclaimed their faith
and defied their tormentors. The governor who persecuted him asked: “If we let you live
will you renounce your faith?quot; St. Lorenzo Ruiz replied: quot;That I shall never do, because I
am a Christian and I shall die for God, and for Him I will give many thousands of lives if I
had them. And so do with me as you will please.quot; First canonized Filipino martyr.
• St. Thomas Toan, Martyr (1767-1840): Thomas Toan, of Can Phan, Vietnam, an elderly
lay catechist and Third Order Dominican, was arrested during the continuing persecution
of Catholics under the Vietnamese emperor Minh Mang. After several months in prison,
he was placed in the company of two apostates from the faith, who were ordered under
pain of death to pressure him into apostatizing. Falling prey to the apostates’ stratagems,
Thomas briefly faltered, expressing a readiness to desert his religion. But quickly realizing
his sin, he repented, confessed his lapse to a Catholic priest, and received sacramental
absolution. Re-affirming his belief in the Catholic faith before a pagan tribunal, Thomas
told the magistrate, “I have sinned against God, but he has forgiven me.” The pagans
thereupon vented their fury upon Thomas, lacerating his flesh with torture, and clamping
him in a neck-yoke, over which they bound his hands, leaving him to die, stripped and
exposed to the fierce summer heat. After twelve days, he perished from starvation.
• St. Protasius Chong Kuk-Bo, Martyr (c. 1798-1839): A Catholic husband and father,
Protasius Chong Kuk-bo administered a hostel in Seoul, Korea to lodge Catholics arriving
in the city to receive the sacraments. In April of 1839, he was arrested by the pagan
authorities. Protasius at first remained steadfast in professing his faith, even after torture.
But subsequently, in a moment of weakness, he apostatized, and was set free.
Tormented with remorse, he was unable to sleep or eat. Intent to reverse his lapse, he
returned to court in order to profess his Catholic faith anew. The court officers, however,
declared his case to be closed, and refused him admittance. But Protasius kept coming
back, repeating his entreaty. Finally, he intercepted the judge in the street, and told him
he was a Christian and intended to continue being one. The judge dismissed his words
and turned to walk away. But Protasius followed after him, exclaiming, “I am a Christian,

6. and I will die a Christian!” Exasperated, the judge complained, “What people these are!
There’s no dealing with them.” He thereupon ordered him to be arrested. After being
tortured, Protasius died from his wounds on May 20, 1839.
• St. Paul Ho Hyob, Martyr (c. 1795-1840): A soldier of Korea’s “Capital Defense Force”
(the “Hul-lyonto-kam”), Paul Ho Hyob lived as a faithful Catholic. The continuing
persecution of Christians under the country’s pagan regime led to Paul’s arrest and
imprisonment in August of 1839. He at first remained steadfast in his profession of faith
after undergoing the tortures of “bone-bending,” stabbing, and seventy blows with a plank,
declaring he would remain a Catholic until death. But several weeks later, his resolve
wavered, and for a brief time he apostatized. Quickly regretting his fall, he went directly to
the judge and declared, “I have sinned, and I repent of it; my mouth pronounced the
words of apostasy, but my heart was Christian, and it still is. Here I am ready to bear new
tortures.” Thereafter, Paul was beaten with 130 more blows of the plank, and died from
this torture in prison on January 30, 1840.
• Blessed Thomas Tsuji, Priest, Religious, and Martyr (c. 1571-1627): Thomas Tsuji, of
Sonogi, Japan, entered the Jesuit Order in 1589. Following his ordination to the
priesthood, he became known among his fellow Japanese Catholics as an exceptional
preacher. In 1614, an imperial edict expelling all Catholic priests forced Father Tsuji to
leave Japan, but four years later he succeeded in re-entering his native land secretly,
disguised as a merchant. While ministering to Japan’s persecuted Catholics, he often
visited Catholic homes disguised as a wood seller. Father Tsuji’s morale faltered as the
persecution grew more ferocious, and he sought and obtained dismissal from the Jesuit
Order. But he soon regretted his decision, and was later readmitted to the Jesuits. In July
of 1626, Father Tsuji was arrested after celebrating Mass for a Catholic father and son,
(Blesseds) Louis and John Maki. While being questioned by a judge, Father Tsuji
declared, “I am prepared to uphold with my life and to testify with my blood to the truths
that I have faithfully taught.” He was put to death with Louis and John Maki, whom he
blessed and enjoined to think upon Christ’s Passion before dying.
• St. Michael Hy-Dinh-Ho, Martyr (c. 1808-1857): Michael Hy-Dinh-Ho, of Nhu Lam,
Vietnam, a high-ranking mandarin of Vietnam’s imperial government, had spent thirty
years as a fallen-away Catholic, never attending Mass or seeing a priest, when he was
arrested on various charges, including that of having sent his son to Malaysia to study for
the priesthood. Under torture, Michael strove to profess his faith, but faltered after
prolonged torments. Nonetheless, in the end Michael overcame his weakness and
embraced martyrdom. The pagan emperor Tu Duc condemned him to be beheaded for
“following the erroneous religion without having any feeling of repentance or regret.”
Along the way to his execution, Michael was thrice beaten with canes. Before dying, the
prisoner knelt to pray, and then asked the executioner to wait. Scanning the faces in the
crowd, Michael made eye contact with a priest, signaling with his eyes that he repented of
his sins and had the desire to confess them if he were able. He then offered his neck to
the executioner.
• Blessed Thomas Alfield, Priest and Martyr (+1585): An alumnus of the Eton boys’ school
and Cambridge University, Thomas Alfield, of Gloucestershire, England, converted to the

7. Catholic faith and journeyed to the continent to study for the priesthood. Following his
ordination in 1581, he returned to England and ministered in the north of the country for
about a year before being captured by the Elizabethan regime. Tortured for his faith,
Father Alfield at first remained steadfast, but later apostatized. Yet as soon as he had
gained his freedom, he repented of his fall. Journeying to Reims, France, he returned to
the Catholic faith. After meeting with the renowned English Catholic apologist, Cardinal
William Allen, Father Alfield returned to England to resume his priestly labors there. He
undertook the dangerous mission of distributing to English Catholics over 500 copies of
Cardinal Allen’s book, A True, Sincere, and Modest Defense of English Catholics, a work
refuting the accusation that Catholics were traitors to their country. Father Alfield was
soon arrested and condemned to death together with the layman Thomas Webley for
distributing this book.
6. Quotations from Pope Benedict XVI
• “Christian faith is properly the religion of ordinary people; the Lord communicates himself
to ordinary people. So it is not a superhuman thing, but comes about in a state of
obedience that places us at God’s disposition wherever he calls. It is the same obedience
that does not trust to one’s own power or one’s own greatness but is founded on the
greatness of the God of Jesus Christ. It is conscious, too, that this divine greatness may
be found in service proper and in losing oneself, in letting oneself be guided by the truth
and moved by love.”
• “Faith requires conversion and that conversion is an act of obedience toward a reality
which precedes me and which does not originate from me….. Only the concrete God can
be something other than a new projection of one’s own self. Following in Christ’s
footsteps is the only way of losing oneself which attains the desired goal…The one who
became flesh has remained flesh. He is concrete…Obedience to the Church is the
concreteness of our obedience.”
• “The secret of holiness is friendship with Christ and faithful obedience to his will.”
• “The word used in the Bible for Jesus’ power already provides a profound interpretation of
the essence of this power: it is not just the power of one’s own physical or technical
strength. It is…the power…stemming from obedience, that is, from a relationship that is
responsibility for being, the responsibility of truth and the good…. Romano Guardini has
very beautifully described the positive content of the fundamental act of Jesus, his
crucifixion and attendant exaltation: ‘Jesus’ entire existence is the translation of power
into humility…into obedience to the will of the Father. Obedience is not secondary for
Jesus, but forms the core of his being.’ For his power there is therefore ‘no limit coming
from the outside, but only one from the inside…the will of the Father freely accepted.’”
• “The thing that counts in Christianity is obedience, humility in the face of God’s word. An
infant, or an overdriven laborer, given faith, can take precedence before heroes of
asceticism, because salvation does not come from man’s greatness but from God’s
gracious mercy.”
• “One of the basic characteristics of a shepherd must be to love the people entrusted to
him, even as he loves Christ whom he serves. ‘Feed my sheep,’ says Christ to Peter.

8. Feeding means loving, and loving also means being ready to suffer. Loving means giving
the sheep what is truly good, the nourishment of God’s truth, of God’s word, the
nourishment of his presence, which he gives us in the Blessed Sacrament.”
7. Other Considerations
When Peter denies Jesus, he discovers something undeniable about himself: his love for Christ
surpasses even the enormity of his evil. It is Christ’s question after the Resurrection that forces
Peter finally to scrutinize this truest fact about his existence: despite the despicableness, the
atrocity of his sin, there is something greater in Peter…something irrevocable, inexorable,
indestructible. Peter loves Jesus Christ. Even his abominable evil cannot annihilate that. The
question that Jesus poses probes Peter to the depths and elicits from him his truest self: He is a
lover of Jesus Christ. That is who he is. “You know that I love you”: that is Peter’s identity. No
degree of atrocious sin will eradicate that reality of love. What seems like an interrogation is in
fact the Lord’s way of raising Peter to life in much the same way he did his other dead friend,
Lazarus. By his triple-repeated query Christ commands: “Peter, come forth. Leave behind the
stink of your denial, your betrayal. By your embrace of your love for me, be unbound and set
free. Roll away the stone of regret. You are Rock! On this Rock I will build my Church. Feed
my sheep.” The risen Christ in his great mercy gives Peter a “new birth: a birth unto hope which
draws its life from the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3). This miracle of
mercy is meant for us. The Resurrection changes us. It makes us different in a verifiable way.
The person who freely desires and enters into a relationship of love with the Risen Christ—like
the Risen Christ—remains human but becomes something more. This is the grace of
obedience. For obedience is “the way we overcome ourselves in our heart” (Giussani). No
longer can Peter be blackmailed by the knowledge of his past sins. His obedience saves him
from debilitating guilt. His obedience enables him to live by the greater truth that he professes to
the Risen Jesus: “You know that I love you.” His obedience makes him bold, and fearless, and
certain, and different in a verifiable way. Obedience is to live everything for the reasons of an
Other. Peter’s own profession of love reveals to him the reason for living the reasons of Jesus—
Peter has been loved by a love that exceeds his cowardice, his incapacity, his scandalous
infidelity, his reprehensible shame. That love has given him an ability to adhere to Christ like
never before. And that adherence is obedience. He—and we—sets out to feed Christ’s sheep
“consecrated by the Spirit to a life of obedience to Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:2).
Recommended Resources
CAMERON, PETER JOHN, To Praise, To Bless, To Preach: Spiritual Reflections on the Sunday
Gospels—Cycle C Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, 2000
TOAL, M.F. Editor, The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers Swedesboro: Preservation Press,
1996
VON BALTHASAR, HANS URS, Light of the Word San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993