Friday 25th Week in Ordinary Time

Fr. Rick’s Two Minute Homily Friday 25th Week in Ordinary Time 09-25-2022
Friday 25th Week in Ordinary Time 2022
Luke 9:18-22 https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092322.cfm

There are many different ways to know a person, from social to profoundly intimate relationships. We can also know a lot about a person, but that doesn’t mean we know them personally.

We know the difference between reading a biography about a person, meeting that person in some social gathering, and living and sharing everything deeply with that person for years.

The latter is the relationship that Jesus seeks to have with each of us. How deeply did Peter know Jesus when he proclaimed him to be the Christ, God’s Anointed One?

Would we not react like Peter did when we saw all of Jesus’ miracles?

When Jesus spoke about God, his words penetrated right into your heart.

Peter experienced this every day for three years.

We could say that much of the time during Jesus’ public ministry, Peter was on Mount Tabor, seeing the glorious Jesus at work.

Jesus knew that Peter and his disciples did not know him because they had not experienced the depth of his merciful love for them in their sinfulness.

For St. Peter, this occurred between the denial of Jesus in the courtyard and Easter morning when Jesus forgave him.

Do you remember that question, “Peter, do you love me?” The mercy we experience from the good heart of another person connects us with them on levels only love can understand.

We find out who the Lord is when we can stand before him and say, “I’m sorry.” And we know he comes back to us like He did Peter and says, “I love you. I will always love you.”

So much of our culture and society want to medicate, pretend, and run away from the mercy that will make us whole. It is freeing to stand before Jesus and say with heart and tears, “I never meant to hurt you so much.”

As he told Simon the Pharisee after he forgave Mary Magdalene in the Pharisees’ home, “it is the one who is forgiven much that loves much.”

Fr. Rick Pilger, I.C.

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