Daily Gospel Reflection
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June 6, 2025
After Jesus had revealed himself to his disciples and eaten breakfast with them,
he said to Simon Peter,
“Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”
Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.”
He then said to Simon Peter a second time,
“Simon, son of John, do you love me?”
Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
He said to him, “Tend my sheep.”
He said to him the third time,
“Simon, son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was distressed that he had said to him a 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.
Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger,
you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted;
but 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.”
He said this signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God.
And when he had said this, he said to him, “Follow me.”
My wife is an Orthodox Christian, with roots in the Orthodox Church, the Melkite Catholic Church, and the Roman Catholic Church. When we got married in the Orthodox Church, we wore crowns during the liturgy, recalling the martyrs who laid down their lives out of love and received the crown of glory.
I think about those crowns when I think of today’s gospel passage. At the heart of it all is a question that changes everything: “Do you love me?” For each of us, how we answer this question changes how we live. My wife and I professed our love, and that changed how we had to live as husband and wife—we were crowned with the symbol of selfless love. When Jesus asks Peter this question, Peter can probably sense that his answer to Jesus’ call is once again going to change his life.
When Jesus responds, “Feed my lambs… tend my sheep… feed my sheep…,” it is as if he is saying: “If you love me, then be like me. I am the Good Shepherd, so go be a good shepherd. I am the one who feeds and cares for my people, so feed the hungry and care for the poor. I am the one who stretched out my hands to offer my life for all, so go and give of yourself for others.”
Jesus makes God’s love known in concrete, tangible ways. If we are genuinely following Jesus, our lives will make God’s love known in concrete, tangible ways. Our answer to Jesus, especially if it is, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you,” changes everything. When we respond to God’s love with love, we become “other Christs” and we share not only in Jesus’ crown of thorns, but also his crown of everlasting glory.
Prayer
Like Peter, dear Jesus, you are calling us to let go of our protestations of loyalty, of our “I can do it” confidence. May it become inescapably clear to us that we can’t really do anything without your help, that we must serve others with the full, painful awareness of our own incapacity. The strength we will need comes only from you. Above all, help us to realize that all those we shepherd, care for, mentor, and guide are your flock, not ours. Amen.
Saint of the Day
St. Norbert turned away from a self-serving life through a dramatic conversion experience and went on to become a great reformer of the Church.
He was born in Germany in 1080 to royal parents. As a young man, he sought the priesthood as an ambitious career move and began preparations for ordination, even though he was only interested in a life of pleasures.
He was out riding one day when he was caught in a thunderstorm and tossed by his horse. He lay on the ground paralyzed for an hour. His first words when he awoke were the same as St. Paul’s after his famous conversion: “Lord, what will you have me do?” A voice answered, “Turn from evil and do good: seek after peace and pursue it.”
Immediately he changed his life. He returned to the court and gave his life to prayer and fasting. He finished his preparation for the priesthood and was ordained. He took on the life of a wandering preacher, encouraging conversion in the court where he lived, but the people there thought him hypocritical. In return, he sold all of his land and goods, keeping only a small bit of money, a mule (which soon died), and the things he needed to celebrate Mass.
He met with the pope, who gave him permission to preach wherever he chose. He set out on a mission to preach and started to gather around him others who were impressed by his conversion and commitment to the faith.
Church leaders drew on his leadership to reform monastic communities that had grown lax in their observance. Norbert himself started a community in an abandoned monastery, and their numbers grew such that other monasteries were established.
While visiting a town in Germany, Norbert was chosen as bishop of that town by popular acclaim from the community’s leaders, but as he approached his new rectory, the doorman turned him away, thinking he was a beggar because he was dressed so humbly. As bishop, he asserted a reform of the Church, which was met with resistance, but Norbert persisted.
Late in his life, he was drawn into a crisis in which disputed popes claimed to have been elected, and his influence was a great help in resolving the matter. All of his work had exhausted him, however—he had only been ordained 20 years when he died on this date at the age of 53.
Along with St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Norbert stands as a great reforming Saint of the time whose influence led people to holiness for generations. St. Norbert’s relics rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica.
St. Norbert, your dramatic conversion experience helped you lead the Church to greater faithfulness—pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image of St. Norbert is in the public domain. Last accessed March 18, 2025 on Wikimedia Commons.
