Commentary on the Gospel of
Today’s passage is the closing scene of John’s Gospel. Jesus once again invites Peter to “Follow him!” At an earlier time, Peter sounded very courageous and even heroic. “I will lay down my life for you” (Jn 13:37), he said. As the events unfolded, he failed to live up to his brave talk, preferring instead to save his skin. That was a profound lesson in humility, and that experience and later the dramatic shifts in the life of the Community have made Peter a transformed man.
Jesus’ final words recorded in the Gospel are his invitation to Peter: Follow me. From the evangelist’s point of view, the Christian life is always the disciple’s response to Jesus’ invitation: Follow me!
Let us renew our yes to the Lord to follow him. In prayer with Mary, our Mother, we ask the Holy Spirit to fill our lives: The following is a prayer composed by the late Bishop Pedro Casaldaliga, a Spanish Claretian missionary, known as the bishop of the poor and the forgotten in Brazil.
Come Holy Spirit, the Creator. Stay with us today, give us your intelligence and fill our hearts with goodness. Your name is comfort, inspiration, life, and grace. You are novelty: creative force. Come, Holy Spirit, so that your Light illuminates our course and strengthens our decisions. You have done all the good things –the one who presides over our discernment and points the ways of our options – Your name is unity, hope and love. Keep us from evil, selfishness, injustice, intolerance, and divisions. Give us your peace, blessing, comfort, serenity and wisdom; so that we transform our present into the will of the Father in heaven.
