7TH FRIDAY HOMILY OF THE EASTER — YEAR A
HOMILY THEME: DO YOU LOVE ME?
BY: Fr. Benedict AGBO
After the last breakfast prepared by Jesus himself as the chief cook of the heavenly cafeteria, Our Lord asked Peter a very important question.The question was not : ‘Simon, Son of John, do you know me?’ One should have expected that question from Jesus to Peter after he had few days earlier denied him before a maidservant saying : ‘I do not know the man’. But Jesus knew that the bone of contention was not knowledge but love – and not ordinary love but sacrificial (agape) love. Jesus is not interested in how many Bible quotations we know or how many Church dogmas or life of Saints we can chronicle but he is interested in how much we are ready to sacrifice our comforts to witness to his death and resurrection . He told Peter : ‘When you were a child you did what you liked.. But when you grow old you will stretch out your hands and somebody else will put a belt around you and take you to where you will rather not go’. It was this stage that Peter was gradually stepping into. One who has watched the film ‘Quo Vadis’ would see clearly the realization of this prophesy in the last days of St Peter when he finally took the courage in witnessing and was crucified upside down.
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Look at Paul being tossed about from pillar to post in today’s 1st reading for asserting with boldness as Governor Festus put it that ‘one Jesus who was dead, is alive’. Festus was a Provincial Governor resident in Caesarian, a Roman Colony under the Emperor Caesar Augustus. He needed official backing and had to present Paul’s case before King Agrippa since he had noticed secret plans by Jewish Chief priests to lay ambush and have Paul murdered on his way to Jerusalem. Paul’s zeal of the Holy Ghost for evangelization was unquenchable, and so he had appealed to Caesar and was on board to carrying his evangelical mission to Rome, the headquarter of the Roman government.He was later slaughtered like a goat for holding tenaciously to his belief in Christ.
According to Eric Fromm, ‘Mature love says “I need you because I love you” while immature love says “I love you because I need you” ‘. God is watching us everyday to see our love transform from that level when we worship him because of one need or the other to the level when we worship because we love him and can die for him – a level of obedience where nothing can ever separate us again from the love of Christ, Rom 8: 35. The problem with modern day Christianity is this low level of discipleshipleship where majority of Christians (including Church leaders) do not actually love Christ deeply. We need true Shepherds in the political scene to lead our Country Nigeria selflessly in the part of progress and in the ecclesiastical scene to lead the people of God to true holiness. Jesus is still asking all of us this fundamental question: Do you love me more than all the rest of your colleagues? May God bless you today!
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