“Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Imagine the heart of Peter when Jesus asks him this question. Imagine the questions that arise, the shame of his past rejection, the shame of past sins. Imagine the uncertainty of how to respond: “How should I answer?” he might have thought. Now, imagine the Lord asking you: “Do you love me?”
Can we honestly answer “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you?” Notice Jesus’ response to each of Peter’s confessions is to exhort him to act upon that love: for us who claim to love Jesus, is that love reflected in our actions, in how we live our lives? In other words: do we live as people who love Jesus?
There are many Christians—Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant alike—that, when asked, might say something like, “I believe in God. I go to church. I’m a good person.” Yet their idea of a good person is one who commits no crimes and is generally nice to everyone. Is that what it means to love the Lord? Turn it around: what if God professed His love for mankind, and it looked the same? He came among us one hour a week, He generally kept a positive mindset toward us, and did nothing wicked against us. Would we be convinced of His love? No: rather God shows the extreme depth of His love by His actions, primarily by the death of His Only Begotten Son upon the Cross. Jesus tells Peter that, ultimately, his love for Jesus will lead him to the same kind of death: “…when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go…”
Each time you approach the Eucharist at Mass, Jesus asks you, “Do you love me?” He asks this because He is, in that Sacrament, expressing His love: “This is my body, which will be given for you…This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you,” (Luke 22:19-20). He gives Himself, totally, freely, out of love for you: is it not right and just, then, to reciprocate? How often we receive Jesus with such indifferent hearts! How often we receive this treasure and give almost nothing in return! Imagine a marriage with the same dynamics as our relationship with Our Lord in the Eucharist, in which one spouse gives all, and the other gives as much as you give the Lord: will that marriage endure “until death”? Will our relationship with the Lord likewise tend toward the eternity of Heaven?
What are we, then, to do? Jesus tells us as He tells Peter “Follow me.” Follow Him! This means more than mere belief, and even means more than merely trailing after Him: it means imitating His example. It means modeling your life after His own, of truly being His disciple and not merely a person studying a subject, as an artist studies a model in order to replicate it on some medium. Our Love for Jesus must be transformative: the two must become one. Jesus said that Peter would die a death like His own, and indeed Peter did, not because of some strange prophecy but because his love for Jesus had transformed him, had made him become more like his beloved Lord: we become what we love.