Connections&  
April 29, 2001--Third Sunday of Easter

• Jesus appears to his disciples at the Sea of Tiberias.  Peter was distressed that Jesus had said to him a third time, "Do you love me?" and said to Jesus, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you."        John 21:1-19
  

     In 1981, in the midst of a distinguished career that included an Academy Award nomination for The Godfather, actor James Caan decided to take some time off.  The best part of his six-year sabbatical, he says, was coaching.  Little League, T-ball, soccer.  He began with his sons, but his passion soon became an all-consuming one. 
     Don't you miss the creative process of making movies?  he was often asked. 
     Coaching kids was one of the most creative things he had ever done, he says.  One boy in particular still sticks in Caan's memory 20 years later:  a nine-year-old named Josh, the son of a single mom.
     "He was a big kid, and he just couldn't hit the ball," Caan remembers.  You could see the kid's head was down and he was ashamed."  Caan spent hours with the boy, working with him one-on-one. 
     "The next to last game of the year, Josh comes up to bat.  The week before he had popped up to the pitcher with the bases loaded.  He felt terrible.  Anyway, he gets up, and he just creams the ball.  I mean he creams it.  And the kid starts running toward first and down toward second.  I'm on third, coaching third base, and he looks up at me.  I start waving him home.  When he sees me waving him on, he looks at me--I'll never forget it as long as I live--and there were tears in his eyes.  He ran home, stopped just before the base, then jumped up in the air and landed with both feet on the plate.  He put both fists in the air, and he looked up at God.  The whole dugout cleared out to hug him.
     "Nothing replaces that.  Nothing in the world.  I mean, to literally change a kid.  That was the best time of my life."
     [From "24 Things to Do Before You Die" by Edward Sussman, in Worth, September 1999.]

CONNECTION:  Today's Gospel is a beautiful story of a life being changed and restored.  The Risen Jesus asks Peter three times--the same number of times that Peter denied him on Good Friday--to profess his love for him.  We can hear the pain and hurt in Peter's voice--but also his conviction--in his response after Jesus questions his love for him a third time:  "Lord," Peter pleads, "you know everything.  You know that I love you."  Jesus is not taunting Peter here but calling Peter to move beyond the past and to take on the challenges of apostleship.  In forgiving Peter as he does, in affecting reconciliation with Peter, Jesus transforms Peter's regret and shame into understanding and conviction of the Gospel the fisherman had witnessed.  Jesus calls us to change lives--both our own and others--through constantly seeking reconciliation with one anther, in possessing the greatness of heart to forgive and seek forgiveness, in finding that unique and total joy that comes only from putting the joy of others before our own.