1. "Just as the day was breaking, Jesus stood on the beach" (Jn 21: 4). At the crack of dawn, the Risen One appeared to the Apostles, who had just returned after a night of unsuccessful fishing on the lake of Tiberias. The Evangelist explains that on that night "they caught nothing" (Jn 21: 3) and adds that they had nothing to eat. They obeyed Jesus' invitation:  "Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some" (Jn 21: 6) without hesitation. Their response was prompt and their reward great, because all night long their net had been empty and now, "they were not able to haul it in for the great quantity of fish" (Jn 21: 6). 

How can we not see in this episode, which St John mentions in the epilogue of his Gospel, an eloquent sign of what the Lord continues to do in the Church and in the hearts of believers who trust in him without reserve? The five Servants of God whom I have had the joy of raising to the honour of the altars today are special witnesses of the extraordinary gift which the risen Christ lavishes upon every baptized person:  the gift of holiness. 

Blessed are those who make this mysterious gift fruitful, allowing the Holy Spirit to conform their lives to Christ who died and was raised! Blessed are you who shine today like bright stars in the firmament of the Church:  Manuel González García, Bishop, Founder of the Congregation of the Misioneras Eucarísticas de Nazaret; Carlos Manuel Cecilio Rodríguez Santiago, layman; Marie Anne Blondin, virgin, foundress of the Congregation of the Sisters of St Anne; Caterina Volpicelli, virgin, foundress of the Servants of the Sacred Heart; Caterina Cittadini, virgin, foundress of the Ursuline Sisters of Somasca. 

Each one of you, in promising yourselves to Christ, made the Gospel the your rule of life. Thus you became his faithful disciples, having drawn that newness of life, inaugurated by the mystery of the Resurrection, from the inexhaustible spring of his love.

2. "That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord' " (Jn 21: 7). In the Gospel we have heard that seeing the miracle worked, a disciple recognizes Jesus. The others will recognize him later. In presenting to us Jesus who "came and took the bread and gave it to them" (Jn 21: 13), the Gospel points out how and when we can meet the risen Christ:  in the Eucharist, where Jesus is truly present under the appearances of bread and wine. It would be sad if, after so long, the Saviour's loving presence were still to be unknown by humanity. 

This was the great passion of the new blessed, Bl. Manuel González García, Bishop of Malaga and later of Palencia. His experience before a deserted tabernacle in Palomares del Río was to mark his whole life, and from that moment he dedicated himself to spreading devotion to the Eucharist, proclaiming the words he subsequently chose as his epitaph:  "Here is Jesus! He is here! Do not abandon him!" Bl. Manuel González, founder of the Misioneras Eucarísticas de Nazaret, is a model of Eucharistic faith whose example continues to speak to the Church today. 

3. "None of the disciples dared ask him, "Who are you?'. They knew it was the Lord" (Jn 21: 12). When the disciples recognize him by the lake of Tiberias, their faith in Christ, risen and present among his disciples, is strengthened. For two millennia the Church has not tired of proclaiming and repeating this fundamental truth of faith.

6. "Lord; you know that I love you" (Jn 21: 15; cf. vv. 16, 17).

[Pope John Paul II, homily 29 April 2001]

1. The promise Jesus made to Simon Peter, to make him the cornerstone of his Church, is reflected in the mandate Christ entrusts to him after the resurrection: "Feed my lambs", "Shepherd my sheep" (Jn 21:15-17). There is an objective relationship between the conferring of the mission attested by John's account, and the promise reported by Matthew (cf. Mt 16:18-19). In Matthew's text there was an announcement. In John's there is the fulfilment of the announcement. The words: "Shepherd my sheep" manifest Jesus' intention to ensure the future of the Church he founded, under the leadership of a universal shepherd, namely Peter, to whom he said that, by his grace, he would be "stone" and who would have the "keys of the kingdom of heaven", with the power "to bind and loose". Jesus, after the resurrection, gives concrete form to the proclamation and promise of Caesarea Philippi, establishing Peter's authority as the pastoral ministry of the Church, on a universal scale.

2. Let us say at once that this pastoral mission includes the task of 'confirming the brethren' in the faith, which we dealt with in the previous catechesis. "Confirming the brethren" and "shepherding the sheep" jointly constitute Peter's mission: one might say the proprium of his universal ministry. As the First Vatican Council states, the constant tradition of the Church has rightly held that Peter's apostolic primacy 'also includes the supreme power of magisterium' (cf.) Both the primacy and the power of magisterium are conferred directly by Jesus on Peter as a singular person, even though both prerogatives are ordered to the Church, without however deriving from the Church, but only from Christ. The primacy is given to Peter (cf. Mt 16, 18) as - the expression is Augustine's - "totius Ecclesiae figuram gerenti" (Epist., 53, 1.2), i.e. insofar as he personally represents the whole Church; and the task and power of magisterium is conferred on him as confirmed faith so that it may be confirmatory for all the "brethren" (cf. Lk 22, 31 f). But everything is in the Church and for the Church, of which Peter is the foundation, claviger and shepherd in its visible structure, in the name and by mandate of Christ.

3. Jesus had foretold this mission to Peter not only at Caesarea Philippi, but also in the first miraculous catch of fish, when, to Simon who recognised himself as a sinner, he had said: "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be a fisher of men" (Lk 5:10). On that occasion, Jesus had reserved this announcement for Peter personally, distinguishing him from his companions and associates, among whom were the "sons of Zebedee", James and John (cf. Lk 5:10). Also in the second miraculous fishing, after the resurrection, the person of Peter emerges in the midst of the other Apostles, according to John's description of the event (John 21, 2 ff), almost as if to hand down the memory of it in the framework of a prophetic symbolism of the fruitfulness of the mission entrusted by Christ to those fishermen.

4. When Jesus is about to confer the mission on Peter, he addresses him with an official appellation: "Simon, son of John" (Jn 21, 15), but then takes on a familiar and friendly tone: "Do you love me more than these men?". This question expresses an interest in the person of Simon Peter and is related to his election for a personal mission. Jesus formulates it three times, not without an implicit reference to the threefold denial. And Peter gives an answer that is not based on trust in his own personal strengths and abilities, on his own merits. He now knows well that he must place all his trust in Christ alone: "Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you" (Jn 21:17). Clearly, the task of a shepherd requires a special love for Christ. But it is he, it is God who gives everything, even the ability to respond to the vocation, to fulfil one's mission. Yes, it must be said that 'everything is grace', especially at that level!

5. And having received the desired response, Jesus confers on Simon Peter the pastoral mission: "Shepherd my lambs"; "Shepherd my sheep". It is like an extension of the mission of Jesus, who said of himself: "I am the good Shepherd" (John 10, 11). Jesus, who shared with Simon his quality of "stone", also communicates to him his mission as "shepherd". It is a communication that implies an intimate communion, which also transpires from Jesus' formulation: 'Shepherd my lambs . . . my sheep'; as he had already said: 'On this rock I will build my Church' (Mt 16:18). The Church is Christ's property, not Peter's. Lambs and sheep belong to Christ, and to no one else. They belong to him as to the "good Shepherd", who "lays down his life for his sheep" (John 10: 11). Peter must take on the pastoral ministry to men redeemed "with the precious blood of Christ" (1 Pet 1:19). On the relationship between Christ and men, who have become His property through redemption, is based the character of service that marks the power attached to the mission conferred on Peter: service to Him who alone is "shepherd and guardian of our souls" (1 Pet 2:25), and at the same time to all those whom Christ the Good Shepherd has redeemed at the price of the sacrifice of the cross. Moreover, the content of this service is clear: just as the shepherd leads the sheep to the places where they can find food and safety, so the shepherd of souls must offer them the food of God's word and his holy will (cf. Jn 4:34), ensuring the unity of the flock and defending it from every hostile incursion.

6. Of course, mission entails power, but for Peter - and for his successors - it is a power ordered to service, a specific service, a ministerium. Peter receives it in the community of the Twelve. He is one of the community of the Apostles. But there is no doubt that Jesus, both through the proclamation (cf. Mt 16:18-19), and through the conferring of the mission after his resurrection, relates in a special way to Peter what he transmits to all the Apostles, as mission and as power. Only to him Jesus says: 'Shepherd', repeating it to him three times. It follows that, in the context of the common task of the Twelve, a mission and a power are delineated for Peter, which belong to him alone.

7. Jesus addresses Peter as an individual in the midst of the Twelve, not merely as a representative of them: "Do you love me more than these Twelve? This subject - Peter's you - is asked for the declaration of love and is given this singular mission and authority. Peter is thus distinct among the other Apostles. Even the threefold repetition of the question about Peter's love, probably in connection with his threefold denial of Christ, emphasises the fact of the conferral on him of a particular ministerium, as a decision of Christ Himself, independently of any quality or merit of the Apostle, and indeed despite his momentary infidelity.

8. The communion in the messianic mission, established by Jesus with Peter through that mandate: "Shepherd my lambs . . .", cannot but entail a participation of the Apostle-Shepherd in the sacrificial state of Christ the Good Shepherd "who offers his life for his sheep". This is the key to the interpretation of many events in the history of the pontificate of Peter's successors. Over the whole arc of this history hovers that prediction of Jesus: "When you are old you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not want" (Jn 21:18). It was the prediction of the confirmation that Peter would give to his pastoral ministry with death by martyrdom. As John says, by such death Peter would "glorify God" (Jn 21:19). The pastoral service entrusted to Peter in the Church would have its consummation in his participation in the sacrifice of the cross, offered by Christ for the redemption of the world. The cross, which had redeemed Peter, would thus have become for him the privileged means to fully exercise his task as "Servant of the servants of God".

[Pope John Paul II, General Audience 9 December 1992]