God made human beings in His image and offered them His friendship. However, they stubbornly despised him and consequently lost His friendship. Nevertheless, He did not abandon them to the power of death. Ever since then, He has been on the mission of restoring them to His friendship. He has offered them his covenant repeatedly and taught them through His prophets the path to this restoration. His greatest act in this salvific mission is the sending of His only begotten Son, who, through His death and resurrection, reconciled them to His Father and objectively restored the primeval friendship between God and human beings.
Peter’s Example
However, many are yet to accept the gift of life through Christ but prefer rather to follow the path of perdition. Nonetheless, God is not relenting in His commitment to seek and find the lost. He has continued to send messengers for this purpose. In today’s gospel, Peter is called to be a fisher of human beings. He would need to seek and find the lost sheep of his Master, protect them from preying wolves and nutritiously feed them. It would be his duty, as the chief shepherd of his Master, to take care of the entire herd and lead it home to his Master. The Lord called many more to assist Peter in this challenging assignment. But why does he care so much about human beings? What has he to gain from his unrelenting effort to save human beings?
Why A Relationship is Needed
Indeed, God gains nothing from His works of salvation. No one does Him a favor by believing in Him. God does not actually need the worship and services we render Him. He has enough angels in Heaven for that purpose. The worship we offer Him does not, therefore, increase His divine powers. His divinity is not also diminished, if we do not worship or serve Him. He has always been God. And would always be God. Thus, we do not do Him any favors by serving Him or keeping his ordinances.
God’s invitation for a relationship with Him is, therefore, exclusively for human welfare. God has nothing to lose if people choose to snub His efforts to save them. Yet He does not get tired of calling and saving the lost. Love drives Him on unrelentingly. God cannot but love. His love does not permit Him to give up on human beings. He keeps His door open for whosoever wishes to answer His invitation to a relationship with Him. For He cannot save us without our cooperation.
Beauty in the Calling
The beauty of God’s invitation to His friendship is that His invitees are essentially sinners. Yes, He does not call the justified. He rather justifies the called. He calls sinners, justifies them, and sends them to call other sinners to be justified. The prophet Isaiah was a great mouthpiece of God, but he was not a saint. He needed purification with fire to become worthy of his mission. The Lord pronounced Peter the Rock, on which he would build His church, and the chief shepherd of his flock. Yet Peter had his imperfections. Recall that he even denied his Master three times. But the Lord did not throw him away. He understands. He knows how we are formed; he remembers that we are dust (Ps. 103: 14).
It is, therefore, unnecessary to judge and condemn one another or even oneself. No one should believe that he or she has sinned beyond pardon and despair of God’s mercy. St. Paul made it clear in the second reading today that since Christ has risen from the dead; we are no longer enslaved by our sins. Just one thing is important: Looking up to Jesus who understands our weaknesses.
