103 posts 6/12/2007 6:08 pm
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John 21:15-19... Jesus and Peter... Reflect
John 21:15-19... Jesus and Peter... Reflect
This gospel episode is quite inexhaustible in terms of depth of meaning, richness of teaching, level of symbolism. Among many aspects of it which come to mind, one is the fact that it happened a very short time–at most, a few weeks–after Peter denied Jesus three times on the night of his interrogation by the Jewish tribunal. Yet, that betrayal in no way dissuades Jesus from building his Church on Peter. Not that Jesus ignores the betrayal. He does not. In fact, he is very careful to give Peter a chance to nullify his betrayal with three protests of love. For Jesus know that Peter’s betrayal, by making him more humble, can be positively integrated into Peter’s total destiny. Because God uses even our past sins and mistakes for our own good–if we sincerely disown them.
Psychologist Adrian van Kaam, in his book The Dynamics of Spiritual Self Direction, explains how this all works out:
“God can help us,” he writes, “to make the of the past so that nothing is wasted in our lives. During the years that we were perhaps not yet totally in line with our true self direction, we have been gathering experience, information and understanding, both of ourselves and of the secular society around us. God used that growing awareness to lead to this point of dissatisfaction and of discernment of new and better possibilities of life. We should show our gratefulness and trust in him by not lamenting what has been while wasting the possibilities of today and tomorrow. Nobody can change the past as such; everybody can change the impact of the past on the future. Even the negative experiences of the past can help us to prevent similar mistakes in our life direction, nothing in our lives is wasted” (pp. 266-267 ).
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365 Days with the Lord
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