It is interesting what different cultures consider important qualifications for leadership. In 2015 when Rodrigo Duterte was president of the Philippines, he was challenged by a journalist that he was known to have killed three men when he was mayor of Davao for twenty years. The journalist asked, ‘Don’t you think that makes you unsuitable for being president? But he said, ‘No.’ He thought they were important qualities, as it showed that he was tough and that’s what the country needed in fighting drugs.
In Italy when the billionaire Silvio Berlusconi was running for president, one of the things he did was to show off his multi-million dollar yacht, indicating what power and wealth he had. They considered that an important quality.
Here in the United States, when someone is running for president, the opposite party always tries to find some dirt on the candidate, to prove that they are unsuitable to be a president, even going back to mistakes they may have made in their teens, as though you could find someone with a perfect record.
Then we are presented with the kind of people God chooses to be his instruments and leaders in his Church, often the most unexpected people. Often the kind of people that we would never consider suitable.
St. Peter was a fisherman, probably uneducated, which was normal for the time. Very few people could read or write then. He was zealous and quick to jump into action, but also full of himself. He seemed to continually put his foot in it and as we know he publicly denied Jesus, in spite of his best intentions to be faithful. Fear got the better of him. Yet that did not stop Jesus from choosing him as the first leader of his Church. His betrayal didn’t disqualify him, because God sees the heart and not the outside.
This Gospel passage is another account of where Jesus appeared to the Apostles after the resurrection. It says He was waiting for them on the shore after they had been out fishing. When they were coming back in, Jesus called out to them, ‘Have you caught anything, friends?’ When they said ‘no’, He told them to put the nets out to the right of the boat. When they did, there was another miraculous catch of fish. I’m sure it immediately reminded them of the miraculous catch of fish three years before, when he called Peter and the others to follow him. They then realized it was Jesus.
When they came ashore, it says that Jesus was there and he had made breakfast for them. They didn’t just see him in a vision, but he was actually there with them on the shore and they ate breakfast together. After the meal Jesus challenges Peter: ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ Asking Peter this question three times was addressing the three betrayals. It was making Peter face his mistakes, so that he could be healed of them and move on. Peter needed to be humbled, so that he would recognize that he needed to depend on Jesus for everything and that is how the Lord wanted it to be. He didn’t need someone with a perfect record, but someone who was open to him and was aware of how fallible he was as a human being. That made him the ideal instrument, because he was then completely open to Jesus and not depending on himself. That is why all of the Apostles were able to do such amazing work, because they had come to rely completely on Jesus.
Then we have St. Paul, who was almost the opposite. He was a Pharisee, which meant he was highly educated. He was also what we would call a religious extremist. He was determined to wipe out the Christians and he was in the process of doing just that, by whatever means necessary, killing and imprisoning as many of them as he could find. He wasn’t just dealing with any Christians he came across, he was out hunting for them. Then Jesus appeared to him and everything changed. Overnight he came to understand everything differently, as Jesus revealed everything from him.
He says that after Jesus appeared to him, he went off to Arabia by himself for some time. Only after three years did he go to Jerusalem to meet some of the Apostles and he only met Peter and James. He spent two weeks with them and he wanted to check that what Jesus had revealed to him, was the same as what Jesus had taught the Apostles during his life on earth and of course it was.
One line in the second reading today (Vigil readings) is interesting. St. Paul says,
‘I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the Gospel preached by me is not of human origin. I did not receive it from a human being, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ.’ (Gal 1:1).
This was before he met any of the Apostles.
He also describes the mass by saying, ‘This is what I received from the Lord and in turn passed on to you, that on the night He was betrayed the Lord Jesus took some bread…’ (1 Cor 11:23). He didn’t get this from the Apostles, but directly from Jesus.
But his conversion was so dramatic that many of the Christians were afraid of him. They couldn’t believe his conversion was real.
Imagine if we heard that one of the leaders of ISIS had become a Catholic and wanted to come to our church to speak. Would you trust him. I would certainly be very wary, until we knew for sure that he was sincere.
Something you will often hear from people who disregard the message of Christianity, is that it is just a story. It is unlikely that anyone would give up everything they were doing and dedicate the rest of their lives to preaching this message, unless they were absolutely convinced it was true. Apart from St. John, all of the Apostles were martyred for passing on the teaching that Jesus had given them.
It is good that every so often we are reminded of this. People don’t sacrifice their lives for a story, but they will sacrifice something they believe is truth. All down through the centuries people continue to dedicate their lives to God and pass on the message Jesus commanded the Apostles to preach. And most of those people, including me, have never seen Jesus or actually heard his voice, but they have been completely convinced of it by God’s Spirit.
In St. John’s Gospel, Jesus said to the Apostles, ‘There are many things I want to share with you, but they would be too much for you now. But when the Spirit comes, He will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.’ (Jn 1612). God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, continues to teach us and give us that conviction that what Jesus taught was true, is true.
Why is it so important that we know this? Because the message of Christianity is what makes sense of why we exist, where we come from, why we struggle with sin and what awaits us, because of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Everyone should know this. They don’t have to accept it, but everyone should know it and that’s why Jesus told the Apostles to go out and ‘teach all nations.’
The messengers who pass on this message, like me and thousands of others, are not always the best witnesses because of our own human weakness, but Jesus knew that when He called us.
Jesus said, ‘The Scribes and the Pharisees occupy the seat of Moses. Therefore, you should listen to what they say, but do not be guided by what they do, since they do not practice what they preach.’ (Mt 23:2).
The same applies to all of us messengers, bishops, clergy. What is important is the message that is passed on, even if the messengers don’t give the best example.
Think of the first leaders of the Church, St. Peter, St. Paul and so many others. All that mattered is that they were open to God, not that they were perfect. God doesn’t need our greatness, but our openness to him. And all of us pass on this message to those around us, mostly by the way we live. Our witness is far more important than anything we could say.
‘I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the Gospel preached by me is not of human origin. I did not receive it from a human being, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ.’ (Gal 1:1)
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