Follow Me

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When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” 16A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. 18Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” 19(He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.”
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For the past ten weeks, I have been recovering from surgery to reattach a ruptured quadriceps tendon to my left kneecap. For the first eight weeks, I stayed with the student brothers at St. Dominic Priory, our Dominican formation community in St. Louis.
At first, I was roombound and entirely dependent. One or another strong young brother would fasten a physical therapy belt around my waist to give me an assist from bed to chair to toilet. As today’s scripture says: “Someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.”
With generosity, strong muscles, love, and sacrifice, the brothers accompanied me more deeply into places of vulnerability where I did not wish to go. As I experienced trauma, we experienced a mutually formative experience of brotherhood and love.
I am home now with my local community, walking with a cane, with full recovery in sight. My physical therapy belt is a souvenir now on a shelf in my closet. Nevertheless, this experience beacons me to remember and learn deeply some life lessons about death and resurrection and the Master’s repeated call through the ins and outs of life to “Follow me.”
“Do you love me?” he asks again and again. Sometimes, our answer comes easily; sometimes, it does not. I pray that each of us this Pentecost experiences an inbreaking of God’s Holy Spirit. Come Holy Spirit. Teach us to depend on others and enter into relationship with each other. Teach us to love and to serve. Teach us to trust the Master, who will grab us by the waist whenever we need him most.

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Scripture passage from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright 1989, 1993, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.