This is your servant, Brother Anthony, speaking again. I have been pondering the dialogue between your risen Son and your servant Peter that hopeful morning after breakfast. Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me?” three times. He was asking Peter the question not for his own sake but for your sake. Peter was really saying No all along, which is why Jesus had to ask three times (or more) to move Peter toward a deeper conversion and a genuine Yes. No, Peter really had not loved; up to that moment he had loved neither you nor his neighbor.
So it is with us. Up to now, who among us could answer Yes truthfully to the question? No, up to now, we have not loved you.
And there are many among us who cannot say Yes to you. I would like to advocate for them before you, because I think I understand why they cannot say Yes or have in fact said No. Dear God, I think a lot of people do not believe you love them. I do not speak of those who do not believe there is a God; it makes no sense to say “God does not love us” if we do not believe there is a God. I am speaking now only of those who believe there is a God but who do not believe you love us, dear God.
Did Peter want to talk back to your Son and turn the question back to you? Did Peter want to ask Jesus three times (or more), “Does God love me?” Maybe Peter could not say Yes to Jesus because deep down, he never could accept that you loved him or anyone. I can understand this kind of doubt. There must be millions of people who believe that you act, and powerfully at that, but your acts are not acts of love. No wonder that people take your name in vain and use you with bad intent to malign ends. It is easy to misuse you when we believe you do not love us, that love is not your nature, and mercy is not your name.
You have acted, but you have not loved. That is where I imagine many people stand in their convictions, when it comes down to it. What do we do with this? Is this the truth, or is it us projecting our sins and faults upon you? How are we to know that you are a loving God? How am I to know I am a loving person? It is hard to know. Sometimes I believe that all I ever do is act upon others, but to believe there is love in what I do is only an illusion, or worse, a delusion to justify myself. When you look at the world today, dear God, you can understand why many believe no one has ever loved anyone, and you have never loved us. Is this the truth at last, cold and hard, without illusion or delusion? If it is, then where is hope now?
Dear God, I think our last, best hope is in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is somewhere, I am sure. I call on the Holy Spirit to come to the battle within us and among us. People are fighting; people are raging. Without the Spirit, we are lost. But the Holy Spirit is the commander of love and the commander of life. So I call on the Holy Spirit to come already! Do something to us; do something around us. Do something to me. Otherwise we will fall down into dust and death forever. Even nothingness will not exist anymore. Come, helper. Come as Christ promised. Come to our assistance and make haste to help us. Help us to believe that love is real and that you are love and that we have not deceived ourselves in hoping that your activity is truth, goodness, and beauty. Help us believe that if you are a God of love and life, then we, too, can be partakers in love and life. Amen.
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