Friday of the Seventh Week of Easter
Jn 21:17
Then he said to him a third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
“Lord, you know everything; you know I love you.”
Apostle Peter, the first
to eat his own words
of all the apostles.
He was bold as brass, and trusting in himself;
later turned timid and cringing and denied the Lord.
He would die for the Lord, when the Lord was first going to die for him.
I will stay with you till death and I will lay down my life for you.
Lay down your life for me? I tell you most solemnly, before the crock crows you will have disowned me three times…
What now? The Lord questions him
and when Peter for the third time answered
he loved Christ, and the Lord for the third time entrusted his sheep
to Peter, He foretold how he would suffer
Where now is that old denier? Wasn’t he afraid of being killed
when he denied Christ?
Now he had no reason to be afraid. After all, he could see him alive
in the flesh, the one he had seen hanging on the cross.
Christ has done away with the fear of death
Three times fear denied, three times love confessed.
—After Saint Augustine