Pastor's Corner

4^th May, 2025

This Sunday's First Reading Presents the ongoing tensions between the high priest of the Temple and the community of the apostles. The apostles are prohibited from bearing witness to the Risen Lord, but resist the high priest's mandate, and continue to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ. Today's Gospel places the Risen Lord by the shore of the Sea of Galilee sharing a meal with his disciples. Its conclusion provides us with the magnificent dialogue between Jesus and Peter: "Do you love me?.... feed my sheep." The usage of the verb "love" in Greek helps us understand the Lord's insistence in questioning Peter three times.

Although Peter cannot respond to Jesus with the expected unconditional love (agape), the Lord accepts the love that Peter can offer at this stage of his ministry (philos) because he knows that Peter will grow into that unconditional love much later, when he offers his life in martyrdom for the sake of the Church. It is important for the faithful to distinguish the three words that Greek grammar used for the word "love": eros, love of the flesh; philos, love of family and friends; and agape, the unconditional love that sacrifices oneself for the sake of another.

Can the members of our parish groups identify these three types of love in their lives of those entrusted to their care in the parish or in the broader community?

Rev. Juan J. Sosa
Pastor