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The Truth Seen in Lent
Devotional Thought fo the Day:
“Simon, Simon! Listen! Satan has received permission to test all of you, to separate the good from the bad, as a farmer separa
But Peter answered, “Man, I don’t know what you are talking about!”
At once, while he was still speaking, a rooster crowed. 61 The Lord turned around and looked straight at Peter, and Peter remembered that the Lord had said to him, “Before the rooster crows tonight, you will say three times that you do not know me.” 62 Peter went out and wept bitterly. Luke 22:60-62 GNT.
Even as the adorer enters into the ‘ascending’ reparation made by the Lamb of God to the Father, he opens himself to the ‘descending’ reparation by which the Lamb of God restores likeness to the image of God in souls disfigured by sin. Christ presents Himself in the Most Holy Eucharist as the spotless Victim come to repair sinners, restoring wholeness and beauty to souls. At the same time He is the Priest who offers perfect reparation to the Father by restoring all things to Him ‘whether in heaven or on earth, making peace by the Blood of His cross’ (Col. 1:20).
The apostle Paul one said that he was the chief of sinners, and that was good news, because it showed us that if God could save even him, we are a piece of cake.
Peter is the same kind of confidence builder. After all, the first of the apostles is a man who is as broken as any of us. He puts his foot in his mouth, he is rash, he thinks of himself. He is a great symbol of humanity.
And in today’s gospel reading, he gives us a great example to understand who we are in Christ. There we see his sincerity, he wants to stand by Jesus, even to the point of death. He will vow, he will promise, and I don’t think it is from pride alone. He is devoted to Jesus. He’s left everything to follow him, and even as the storm clouds gather this night before the cross, Peter has bought in fully with his heart.
In the early morning, just a few hours later, he would fail. He would sin as grievously as any person could in life. He would directly deny God. Not once, but three times.
His sincerity went out the window, as his courage failed him. Broken, he weeps even as Jesus looks upon him, with compassion.
Just as you and I do…
We sin, we deny God, our sincerity fails, it is simply not enough to overcome the temptations our desires, our lust, our anger, our idolatry place before us.
We fail as Peter did…and Jesus still looks upon us with compassion, desiring that we would run to Him for refuge, wanting us to come and be cleansed. ANd if we take the time to consider our brokenness and the depth of our sin, we like Peter would weep bitterly.
That is why Jesus promises that when Peter fails when Peter falls into sin, his faith, his dependence on Jesus will not fail. The very thing Peter couldn’t do, Jesus did.
That is why the Eucharist is so needed in our lives. It reminds us of the sacrifice of Christ, the sacrifice that provides not only the payment for our sin but the repair of our lives. In the Lord’s Supper, this Communion with Jesus, we find the Spirit at work, restoring us, transforming us even as the New Covenant promises, for that is why His body was broken, and His blood shed.
for us.
To renew, restore, repair us into the image of Christ, and then bring us into the relationship we were meant to have with the entire Trinity.
It is never easy to admit we sin, that despite our best attempts not to, despite our most sincere desires to overcome it, we will sin. Perhaps less and less as we mature, but the unthinkable will happen.
And when it does, hearing this exchange between Peter and Jesus will hopefully come to mind, and we ill realize Christ’s compassion and the fact that we can depend upon Him.
Look to him, remember his compassion, and let the Spirit comfort and transform you.
This is the lesson of
AMEN!
Kirby, D. M. D. (2012). A Mystagogical Catechesis of Eucharistic Adoration. In A. Reid (Ed.), From Eucharistic Adoration to Evangelization (p. 35). London; New York: Burns & Oates.
