DO YOU LOVE ME

Do you love me?

 Visualise the vast expanse of the Lake of Gennazareth. The night fell gently on the tranquil water. Peter pushed the boat out onto the lake, rowed out, and cast the net – and then realized that he was doing this not because he wanted to fish but because he wanted Jesus. One day he had encountered the Master while casting his nets, he had encountered him in accepting to row back onto the lake; he had encountered him on this same boat doing the things he was doing now. He now realized that he could do nothing, experience nothing without desiring that Jesus be present with him, in their midst.

With tears in his eyes, with a voice like that of a child who is about to break out sobbing, Simon said so loudly that he almost scared himself, “Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you!”

And once again, once and for all, before he had even finished answering, Peter saw with certainty that Jesus believed in his love, that he had believed in this from the first answer, that he had always believed it, since their first encounter on this same shore. Only now, only at this moment, after living with him for three years, after seeing him suffer and after he had died following Peter’s denial and desertion, only now was Peter discovering that Jesus needed his love, that Jesus, the Son of God who had conquered death, was thirsty for his love.

What is love? Love is the effective desire for the good of the other. The key word is “effective”. Love must effect something good and beneficial or it is not love at all, at best an empty wish. The one who loves will do something for the beloved, something really good. But what good could Peter do for Jesus who is already infinitely good and wants for nothing?

“Feed me sheep, feed my lambs.” That is the good Jesus desires of Peter. “I thirst”, cried Jesus on the cross. Peter would slake that thirst by feeding the flock of Jesus, and he would do it unto death.

 “Feed my sheep.” Jesus repeated, and Peter understood that this task was connected to the question that the Lord had asked him. Peter had only one mission left in life: that of loving Jesus Christ, of responding to his thirst for love; responding to this as the sinner that he was, as miserable as he was. It was as if Jesus was telling him, “You can deny me a thousand times, you can deny me your whole life, but never forget to love me, never deprive me of your love.”

What kind of a Saviour is this that thirsts for our love? And what answer does each one us gives to that very searchingly personal question: “Do you love me?” Can you answer: “Jesus, I love you? You know that I love you. But if I can’t say that with full honesty I can certainly say, “Jesus, I really want to love you; please help me to.”  But if I cannot even say that, I can at least say, “Jesus, there’s one thing I know with full certainty, I know that you love me. Give me faith to believe in your love for me and teach me to cope with your immense, unimaginable love.”  

St. John Mary Vianney’s Prayer of Love

I love you, O my God. My only desire is to love you. Until the last breath of my life. I love you, O infinitely lovable God, and I prefer to die loving you rather than to live for an instant without you. I love you, O my God, and I desire to go to heaven only in order to have the joy of loving you perfectly. I love you, O my God, and my fear to go to hell is only because one will not have the sweet solace of loving you there. O my God, if my tongue cannot say it at all times that I love you, I want my heart to repeat it to you with every breath. I beg you that as I come closer to my final end, you will increase and perfect my love for you. Amen.