3rd Sunday of Easter
April 30, 2022
Cathedral of Mary Our Queen
The Importance of Leadership
In an era of rapid change, one thing remains the same: people want good leaders. Corporations spend millions of dollars on leadership training and development. Ideally, political parties look for candidates who can win elections and govern well. As we also know, leadership and authority in the Church are widely discussed, whether it pertains to the principal of a school, lay leaders in a parish or diocese, the pastor of a parish, the bishop, or the Holy Father.
Today’s Scripture readings also speak to us about leadership in the Church. In the reading from John’s Gospel, Jesus sets the standard for it in his Church. In the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we see leadership in action. Concluding, we will consider how we ourselves might lead as Jesus taught. So, let’s take part in our own mini-leadership institute, beginning with the Gospel.
“Jesus’ Leadership Institute”
In that Gospel, we meet the disciples, not in Jerusalem but in Galilee. At Peter’s suggestion, they are fishing in the Sea of Tiberias. They had labored all night long and caught nothing. As they were approaching the shore, they noticed a stranger standing there. He asked, “Children, have you caught anything?” To which they replied, “No.” The stranger then asked them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat. Sure enough, they caught 153 large fish, and their nets were at the breaking point… It was John the Beloved Disciple, who first recognized the stranger as the Risen Lord, for love sees more quickly what the mind is slow to believe.
Hearing this, Peter, the leader of the Apostles, jumped into water and swam ashore, while the other Apostles hauled in the huge catch of fish.
As they did so, the disciples must have remembered Jesus’ words to Peter, “Do not be afraid. From now on you will be catching men” (Luke 5:10).
By the time the Apostles had all come ashore, Jesus had lit a charcoal fire and was preparing breakfast for them . . . The detail about the charcoal fire is meant to set the stage for the ‘leadership institute’ Jesus would now conduct with Peter, for, as you recall, when Peter denied Jesus, he was warming himself by a charcoal fire.
So Jesus takes Peter aside and asks three times, “Do you love me more than these?” Just as Peter denied three times knowing Jesus and being his follower, so now Jesus asks Peter to profess his love three times — and Peter got the point.
And let’s be clear: when Jesus asked, “Do you love me?” he was not merely asking if Peter had warm feelings for him or if Peter were his friend. Jesus wanted to know if Peter loved him with a sacrificial love, like Jesus’ own love.
Each time, Peter replied, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you,” as if to say, ‘Lord, to whom shall I go? You have the words of everlasting life!’
To which the Risen Lord replied: “Feed my sheep. Take care of my flock. Feed my lambs.”
What is going on here? Jesus is not only forgiving Peter for denying him, he is also confirming Peter’s leadership both of the Apostles and of the whole flock which Jesus had won for his heavenly Father by his Cross and Resurrection.
This is one of those places in Scripture where, as Catholics, we believe that Peter and his Successors (the Popes) are given primacy over the whole Church.
But notice, it is not a primacy of power but a primacy of love, and not just any love but a sacrificial love, a love that is ready to go the whole distance in bearing witness to the Risen Lord by proclaiming his Name far and wide – the love of a shepherd who is willing to lay down his life for the flock.
Lesson one in Jesus’ school of leadership, therefore, is sacrificial love. Leadership is not rising to the top or taking pleasure in giving orders, but a leadership expressed in bearing loving witness to the Risen Lord, a leadership that puts everything on the line for the sake of the Gospel & the flock.
There is a second lesson in the Risen Lord’s school of leadership, and it’s this: Peter is to exercise leadership over the Risen Lord’s flock by feeding and by tending.
Not only is Peter to bear witness to the Lord by preaching the Gospel, he is to gather people from every corner of the earth (symbolized by the 153 fish), and to feed them with the Bread of Life and to slake their thirst with the Cup of Salvation.
Bearing witness to the Name, feeding with the Eucharist, pastoral love: this is how leadership is to be exercised in the Church that Jesus founded.
I think we can agree that Jesus’ school of leadership is quite unlike any other, and that those of us in leadership must strive to absorb and live what he taught.
Leadership in Action
In our first reading, Peter and the Apostles are exercising exactly the kind of leadership which Jesus had enjoined on them on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.
By now, they had seen the Risen Lord and had also received the Holy Spirit – so we find them openly and fearlessly proclaiming the Gospel to the people, and that is why they were hauled in before the Sanhedrin, the Jerusalem Council.
The members of the Sanhedrin were anxious to halt the Apostles’ activity, but Peter stepped forward and spoke for all the Apostles when he said, “We must obey God rather than men.”
With that, he proclaimed the essence of the Gospel, even to the Sanhedrin.
Here we see a fearless, Christ-like obedience to God that led Peter and the Apostles not only to teach the Gospel but to be its witnesses, to put their lives on the line.
Eventually they were executed for the Faith, but even now, they were martyrs, courageous witnesses to the Risen Lord and to the Gospel:
Not ashamed of the Risen Lord. Not ashamed of the Cross. Not ashamed of the Name.
The sacrificial love of Jesus blazed forth from their hearts and in their words and actions.
So, it seems to me that Jesus’ leadership institute on the seashore was a success!
What This Means to Us
But Jesus’ leadership institute does not stop with Peter and the Apostles.
His teachings surely apply to the Holy Father and to bishops, priests, and deacons, but not just to them but, in a certain sense, to all of us as baptized Christians.
For Jesus is teaching all of us that true authority hinges on self-giving love. I’ve seen this so often in our Catholic schools – teachers who exercise authority, not by stern disciplinary measures, but by their obvious love and care for their students. Parents who fulfill their God-given role, not by cajoling or pandering, but rather by a self-giving love that flows from their faith in the Risen Lord. Lay leaders who actively engage in the Church’s mission of evangelization, men and women who spread the Gospel first by living it, who have a vibrant relationship of love with the Risen Lord and therefore are not ashamed to bear witness to the faith of the Church, even when their efforts are met with resistance or outright rejection. Priests who spend themselves tirelessly for their flocks, teaching, celebrating the sacraments, offering pastoral love and service to all in need.
As we continue to celebrate with joy the Resurrection of the Lord, let us listen to him. Let us listen as he asks each one of us, “Do you love me?” Do you love me more than anyone or anything else in your life? Do you love me so much that you’d put your life on the line for the sake of my Name? Are you willing to bear witness to me even when it is unpopular to do so? Are you willing to love me by loving others, as I have first loved you?
In the grace of the Holy Spirit, let us hasten to reply, as Peter did: “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you!”