Third Sunday of Easter (Year C)

Homily

Most Rev Timothy Costelloe SDB

Archbishop of Perth

Sunday 03 May, 2025

Mary MacKillop Memorial Chapel, North Sydney, Sydney

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As we celebrate Mass on this third Sunday of Easter, the cardinals in Rome are preparing to enter the conclave this coming Wednesday to elect the new pope. While many people are speaking about the next pope as the successor to Pope Francis, in reality the cardinals will be choosing a successor to Saint Peter. The man the cardinals choose will become the Bishop of Rome and it is in that capacity that he becomes the leader of the Church throughout the world. Saint Peter, who was chosen by Christ to be the leader of the apostles, was martyred in Rome and buried in the public cemetery on the Vatican Hill, and it was over his grave that the Basilica of Saint Peter was built.

As we continue to pray for the eternal rest of the most recent successor to Saint Peter, Pope Francis, and as we pray that the cardinals will be open to the guidance and wisdom of the Holy Spirit as they choose the next successor to Saint Peter, it seems very appropriate that today’s gospel should invite us to reflect on this man whose faith and witness became the rock on which the Church was to be built. The story of his response to the call of Jesus in his life can help us understand what we can hope for and ask from the next pope. At the same time, it can help us understand what we are called to be and to do, for we are all disciples of Christ, called to share in the life and mission of the Church.

In many ways today’s gospel, which comes at the end of the last of the gospel to be written, is itself a retelling of the story of Peter. It begins with Peter going fishing. In the gospel tradition, the first time we meet Peter, then called Simon, he is on his boat fishing. He and his companions have been out all night but have caught nothing. And then Jesus, whom these men have apparently not previously encountered, tells them to throw their nets over the other side of their boat. We know what happens. Peter, and those with him, are overwhelmed by the number of fish they catch. Peter‘s response is to fall on his knees and tell Jesus that he, Simon, is a sinful man. How could the disciples, gathered on the shore after the resurrection, not have remembered all this when, once again but now in the presence of the Risen Lord, the same thing is happening?

The rest of the gospel tradition concerning Peter will show us that Peter was speaking truly when he described himself as a sinful man. As we know he failed Jesus often. But that did not stop Jesus from choosing him, from relying on him, and from trusting him with great things. If the gospel story is, at least in part, the retelling of Peter‘s failures and infidelities, it is also the retelling of the never-failing fidelity of Jesus to him.

Today’s story goes on to tell us that when Peter realised it was Jesus on the shore, he jumped over the side of the boat and made his way to the Lord. As we read this story, we remember another time when Peter jumped over the side of the boat to make his way to Jesus. On that occasion, Peter and the other disciples were gripped by fear in the midst of a raging storm and Jesus assured them that they had no reason to fear because He was with them. Now, once again, Jesus assures them that, after the raging storm of His passion and death, He is still with them as He promised He would be.

The other disciples haul the fish ashore and Jesus invites them to have breakfast with Him. It is a meal of bread and fish. This, of course, is not the first time Jesus has fed people with bread and fish. When Jesus originally multiplied the bread and the fish to feed the five thousand, He did so only after the disciples had gathered what little food the people had brought with them. “We only have five loaves and two fish,” they said to Jesus, “but what is that among so many?” Jesus’ response was to take the little that His disciples had been able to gather, offer it to His Father, and then distribute it to the thousands who had gathered to listen to Him. Jesus worked the miracle of receiving the little that people could offer and transforming it into an abundance to meet people’s needs, but He then entrusted Peter and the other disciples with the task of making sure that everyone received what they needed from that abundance.

Peter‘s sinfulness, his impetuosity, but also his desire to respond to the Lord, revealed across the whole gospel tradition, are all on display in this morning’s gospel passage. And so, too, is the deepest truth about the relationship between Peter and Jesus: it is summed up in the three questions which Jesus asks Peter and the three responses which Peter gives. In fact, there is only one question asked three times, and one response given three times: Peter, do you love me? Peter, do you love me more than these others do? Peter, do you really love me?  - Yes, Lord, I love you. Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you. With extraordinary sensitivity, largeness of heart, and profound love Jesus offers Peter three opportunities to speak of what lies deepest in his heart: the depths of his love for his Lord. And surely in that moment, Peter understands fully that his three dreadful betrayals of the Lord just before Jesus‘ death have been forgiven and healed. It is Peter‘s capacity for love, which Jesus must have seen in him at their first encounter and which even Peter’s deepest betrayals could not undermine, which led the Risen Jesus, before He returned to His Father, to commission Peter to feed Jesus’ lambs and look after His sheep.

A worthy successor to Saint Peter will be a man in love with the Lord. He will be a man who knows deep within him that he is indeed a sinner. He will be a man who knows how to fall on his knees when he needs to – someone who is able to weep bitter tears. He will be a man who will know how to offer the little he has to the Lord so that the Lord can transform his meagre offerings into an abundance of grace for us. And he will be a man who is prepared to be led into places he might himself prefer not to go if that is where the Lord takes him.

And lastly, he will be a man who will need the acceptance, the loyalty, the faithful obedience, and the prayerful support of the people of God - of us - once he has allowed the cardinals to tie a belt around his waist and to lead him to a place which he would probably prefer not to go.

At present, we do not know who that man will be. For now, then, our prayer must be that the hearts and minds of each of the cardinals as they gather together in the conclave this week will be open to the wisdom and guidance of the Holy Spirit as they search for that man: for the one who, in God‘s providence, will continue to lead the Church along the Gospel path of fidelity. And one that choice is made, may we all be open to all that God wishes to do in and for His Church through our next pope’s life and ministry.