May 5: "Peter, do you love me more than these others do?"
God is always at work, even in the darkness of our lives. The Lord uses eucatastrophes – bringing good out of evil. He never abandons us. Fr. Steve gives some examples of eucatastrophes in people’s lives. God wants to meet us in the midst of our pain. In today’s readings the disciples rejoiced at being able to suffer for the sake of the Lord’s name.
Fr. Steve refers to the Gospel of today, in which the disciples go fishing and encounter Jesus in the same circumstances under which they had been called – in a miraculous catch of fish. Afterwards at the charcoal fire Jesus tests Peter by asking if he loves him, and this mirrors the three times Peter denied him at the charcoal fire in the courtyard of the Praetorium in Jerusalem.
Fr. Steve invites us to look forward to Pentecost, to look for eucatastrophes in our own lives and to witness to others about the Lord’s loving presence even in the midst of our pain.
