Commence your prayers with the posture and mode that you find best. You can say a brief prayer: “Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your children”, or any other that you find good. Try to place all your being in the presence of God.
Topic: the road of Pedro (also my road)
Peter is the figure that resumes the road that the disciples have to run.
There are TWO fundamental moments in his life: en which he confesses that he is a sinner: Luke 5, 8 and Luke 22, 623. ¿How did he arrive at this popint, what stages did he go through?
His experience is important for me, for all of the People of God: Luke 22, 31-32 “you must strengthen your brothers”.
We all have the possibility of repeating this experience.
1. Confession and lack of understanding of Peter.
Starting from Luke 9,20 “Who do you say I am? Luke presents us with the confession and Mark 8, 29 is exactly the same. Peter gets to culminate his mission: full of happiness and confidence he confesses his faith…. And for that reason he is disconcerted when he hears: “The Son of man must suffer”: Mark 8, 31-33 How Peter’s mood will change!
The Gospel is a Gift given freely by God; it is salvation that God offers to the sinner. Whilst we receive it with gratitude and humility we are on the road, it is alright… The problem is when we take it over. We use it like it were our property.
Then we convert ourselves in the owners of the Gospel. The mistake of Peter on this pathway of faith is subtle: on Mount Tabor he wanted to stay there, in a tent, the Kingdom in his hands.
But Peter is not a coward, his isn’t afraid (a man of the sea). He is sincere. The bad thing is to want to be number one, to be the saviour himself.
2. The crisis of Peter.
We must think about the episode in the Garden of Gethsemane : the anguish of Jesus. Peter sees the failure of Jesus and he WEAKENS, his trust and confidence weakens. He doesn’t want to know about it and he DENIES HIM.
Jesus is arrested….. and Peter flees from the heat, from the danger. (Afterwards, by the grace of God, many have died to confess their faith).
In Saint Peter there is an interior collapse. The idea of God falls to pieces. But he follows the Calvary of his Teacher: “To see how it ended up” (something still touched his heart). The Gospel says that he “followed from a distance, from afar”,: something remained…
At times how far we are from ourselves!! Far from Jesus but also far from ourselves, from our ideals, from the road that we know is the right one! How far from others! Love and trust begin to disappear!! How far from God!!
Peter has no more strength and he DENIES.
And this can happen to anybody: TO BEGIN TO DOUBT EVERYTHING. To break commitments and to stop carrying out the word, to stop loving others, to stop loving God. “And the Lord looked at him”.
3. The experience of letting oneself be loved:
This has been these days of Exercises. It should be like that all the days of our life. Once Peter felt, say the look of Jesus: HE WEPT he understand the Gospel: salvation for the sinner. He receives the love that is offered without limits. Peter lives the experience of LETTING ONSELF BE LOVED BY GOD.
The most difficult and the easiest thing: TO LET ONESELF BE LOVED, TO LET ONESELF BE SAVED.
- The Gospel is to say THANK YOU to God: forgiven and welcomed.
- Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus understood and lived the substance of the Gospel : THE MERCY OF GOD WHO LOVES US.
Conclusion:
- Not only these days.
- All the days of our lives, And especially in the hour of death.
A HAIL MARY.