"How does Jesus look at me today?" The question suggested by Francis directly reaches and challenges every Christian with the same force as the "three looks that the Lord had for Peter". Looks that tell of "the enthusiasm of vocation, repentance and mission", the Pope explained in the Mass celebrated on Friday 22 May, in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta.
The passage that recounts the dialogue between Jesus and Peter, the Pontiff noted, "is almost at the end" of John's Gospel" (21:15-19) "We always remember," he continued, "the story of that night of fishing," when "the disciples caught no fish, nothing. And for this "they were a little angry". So "when they approached the shore" and were asked by a man if they had "something to eat", "they angrily" replied, "No!". For truly 'they had caught nothing'. But this man told him to cast the net on the other side: the disciples did so "and the net was filled with fish".
It is "John, the closest friend, who recognises the Lord". For his part, "Peter, the enthusiastic one, threw himself into the sea to get to the Lord first". This is indeed 'a miraculous catch', Francis noted, but 'when they arrived - this is where today's Gospel passage begins - they found that Jesus had prepared breakfast: there was fish on the grill'. So they ate together. Then 'after eating, the dialogue between Jesus and Peter began'.
"Today in prayer," the Pope confided, "the gaze of Jesus on Peter came to my heart". And in the Gospel, he added, 'I found three different looks of Jesus on Peter'.
"The first glimpse," Francis noted, is encountered "at the beginning of John's Gospel, when Andrew goes to his brother Peter and says to him, 'We have found the Messiah'". And "he takes him to Jesus", who "fixes his gaze on him and says: "You are Simon, son of Jonah. You will be called Peter'". It is "the first gaze, the gaze of the mission that, later on in Caesarea Philippi, explains the mission: 'You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church': this will be your mission".
"In the meantime," the Pontiff said, "Peter had become an enthusiast of Jesus: he was following Jesus. We remember that passage in the sixth chapter of John's gospel, when Jesus speaks of eating his body, and many disciples at that moment said: 'But this is hard, this word is hard'". So much so that "they began to draw back". Then "Jesus looks at the disciples and says: 'Do you also want to leave'?". And "it is Peter's enthusiasm that replies: 'No! But where shall we go? You alone have words of eternal life!"". So, Francis explained, "there is the first glimpse: the vocation and a first announcement of the mission". And "what is Peter's soul like in that first look? Enthusiastic'. It is "the first time to go with the Lord".
Then, the Pope added, "I thought about the second look". We find it "late on the night of Holy Thursday, when Peter wants to follow Jesus and approaches where he is, in the priest's house, in prison, but is recognised: 'No, I don't know this one!'". He denies him "three times". Then "he hears the cockcrow and remembers: he has denied the Lord. He has lost everything. He has lost his love". Just "at that moment Jesus is taken into another room, across the courtyard, and fixes his gaze on Peter". Luke's gospel says that "Peter wept bitterly". So "that enthusiasm to follow Jesus has become weeping, because he has sinned, he has denied Jesus". But "that gaze changes Peter's heart, more than before". So "the first change is the change of name and also of vocation". Instead "this second gaze is a gaze that changes the heart and is a change of conversion to love".
"We do not know what the look was like in that encounter, alone, after the resurrection," Francis said. "We know that Jesus met Peter, the Gospel says, but we do not know what they said". And so the one recounted in today's liturgy "is a third look: the confirmation of the mission; but also the look in which Jesus asks for confirmation of Peter's love". In fact "three times - three times! - Peter had denied"; and now the Lord "three times asks for the manifestation of his love". And "when Peter, each time, says yes, that he loves him, he gives the mission: 'Shepherd my lambs, pasture my sheep'". Moreover, to the third question - "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" - Peter "was grieved, almost weeping". He is sorry because "for the third time" the Lord "asked him 'Do you love me?'". And he answers him: "Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you". And in return Jesus says: "Shepherd my sheep". Here is "the third gaze: the gaze of the mission".Francis then reproposed the essence of the Lord's "three gazes" on Peter: "The first, the gaze of choice, with the enthusiasm of following Jesus; the second, the gaze of repentance at the moment of that very grave sin of having denied Jesus; the third gaze is the gaze of mission: 'Shepherd my lambs, pasture my sheep'". But "it does not end there. Jesus goes further: you do all this out of love and then what? Will you be crowned king? No'. Indeed, the Lord states clearly: "I tell you, when you were younger, you dressed yourself and went where you wanted. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and another will clothe you and take you where you do not want". As if to say: 'You too, like me, will be in that courtyard in which I have fixed my gaze on you: near the cross'.
Precisely on this the Pope proposed an examination of conscience. "We too can think: what is Jesus' gaze on me today? How does Jesus look at me? With a call? With a forgiveness? With a mission?". We can be sure that 'on the road he has taken, we are all under the gaze of Jesus: he always looks at us with love, asks us for something, forgives us something and gives us a mission'.
Before continuing the celebration - "now Jesus comes to the altar," he recalled - Francis invited us to pray: "Lord, you are here, among us. Fix your gaze on me and tell me what I must do; how I must mourn my mistakes, my sins; what courage with which I must go forward on the path that you first made". And 'during this Eucharistic sacrifice', it is appropriate 'that we have this dialogue with Jesus'. Then, he concluded, "it will do us good to think throughout the day of Jesus' gaze on me".
[Pope Francis, S. Marta homily, in L'Osservatore Romano 23/05/2015]
