Every day of Lent, Bishop Edward Malesic writes a Scripture reflection for the faithful. Follow the bishop on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Click HERE for the readings.
Most of us have good intentions. We want to do what is right and just. We want to acknowledge God, worship Him, and if God’s honor is questioned, we want to defend Him. Yet we fail in many of our good intentions. St. Paul would say it best in Romans 7:19: “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”
Peter in today’s Gospel, supports Jesus with words that soon prove to be empty: “I will lay down my life for you.”
But Jesus knows the human heart, and he said the famous line to Peter, “Amen, amen, I say to you, the cock will not crow before you deny me three times.”
My guess is that if you are reading this, you are serious about trying to be a disciple of Jesus. So am I. We have great intentions, and our desire is always to do God’s will by choosing what is good and rejecting what is evil.
Yet, we also know from experience, that we are all too human and weakened by the reality of original sin. Like St. Paul, too often we don’t do what we should, and we do what we shouldn’t. Jesus knows that too. He lives among us after all, himself being without sin.
It would be good to remember what happened after Jesus was arrested, when the cock finally crowed, and Peter realized that he had failed Jesus by his threefold denial of ever having known him. Peter wept.
So, during Holy Week, in a more intense way, we recognize our faults and our sins. We know that our actions have not always matched our words. We have not always lived our love for Jesus. Sometimes, our actions have denied our faith in him. We beg the Lord to have mercy on us, and on the whole world. And we should grieve our sins, just as Peter did.
When we finally come to Good Friday, we will graphically see what our sins have done to Jesus. We should also be ready to hear him say from the cross, “Father, forgive them.”