The Name Fulfilled

A Pilgrimage Through the Apostles

Peter’s Final Chapter | The Maturing of a Love

“Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”
— John 21:17

When Love Is Young

When we are young, I think we are a little naive about love.

We believe certain things about ourselves and about the person we love. We make promises because we truly believe we can keep them. We think we know what always and never mean, even though we haven’t lived enough life to understand what those words may eventually ask of us.

It makes it innocent, not false.

Then life happens.

Marriage has taught me something about that. Two people begin in love, but then come the years. Children. Finances. Heartache. Arguments. Disappointments. Responsibilities. Loss. Forgiveness. All the ordinary and extraordinary things two people never could have imagined when they first looked at one another and promised a lifetime.

And somehow, if they continue choosing one another through all of it, the love changes.

There is something special about mature love.

It has been tested by fire and time. It knows the person more completely. It knows itself more honestly. It has seen disappointment and joy, weakness and strength. It has had reasons to hurt and reasons to forgive.

And – Yet it remains.

There is a depth and sweetness in that kind of love that innocent love simply doesn’t have yet.

It just hadn’t lived long enough.

Mature love has.

It is a love that knows what it wants.

And as I read the older Peter, I realized:

That is what I see in him.

Peter’s Young Love

Peter loved Christ from the beginning.

I do not believe his love was false; it was simply young

It was fierce. Certain. Immediate.

Peter was the one who could say, in effect, Just tell me to come to You, and then step out onto the water.

“Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the water.”
— Matthew 14:28

And he would go….then become afraid.

“But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, ‘Lord, save me.’”
— Matthew 14:30

That feels like young love to me.

A love that believes completely, but does not yet understand itself.

Peter loved Jesus enough to step out of the boat. But he had not yet learned what fear could do to him.

That happened again and again.

He wanted to protect Jesus, argued with Him, and tried to redirect what he did not understand. He drew the sword; he made promises. He acted quickly because his love was quick.

Before the great failure, I almost see these moments as the smaller strains that come while a relationship is still growing. – The little clashes. – The misunderstandings.

The moments when love is real, but still immature enough to think it knows what love requires.

Peter loved Christ.

He just had not yet been tested all the way through.

That would come soon enough.

When Love Is Tested

Then came the first true test.

Peter had faced smaller moments before. He had misunderstood Jesus. He had argued with Him. He had become frightened on the water. But the courtyard was different.

Jesus told Peter what was coming.

“Truly, I say to you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.”
— Matthew 26:34

Peter answered:

“Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you.”
— Matthew 26:35

I believe Peter meant it. He was not pretending to love Jesus. He was not deliberately making a promise he expected to break.

Peter believed Peter knew Peter.

Then the test came.

Three times he was given the opportunity to identify himself with Jesus.

Three times he denied Him.

If I continue thinking about Peter’s relationship with Christ through the lens of how human love matures, the denial almost feels like a breakup on Peter’s side.

Not because Peter stopped loving Christ—he never did. But Peter failed the One he loved and had to carry the weight of what he had done.

And perhaps even more painfully, he discovered a truth about himself that he had never known before.

The man who had said, I will die with You, discovered that fear could make him say, I do not know Him.

Luke tells us what happened after the third denial:

“And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord.”
— Luke 22:61

Peter went out and wept bitterly.

Young love had met something it could not conquer through certainty alone.

Peter could no longer say, I know what I will do.

He had been tested. And had failed.

But failure was not going to be the end of the relationship.

Love Begins Again

Upon Christ’s Resurrection, Peter finds himself facing something he had never imagined.

Jesus is alive.

Peter is not able to return to the innocent love he had before the courtyard. Too much has happened.

Peter knows something about himself now that he had not known before. He knows that he can fail Christ even while loving Him.

And yet Christ never stopped loving Peter.

When Peter recognizes the Lord standing on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he throws himself into the water to reach Him.

“It is the Lord!”
— John 21:7

Peter still loves Him.

After breakfast, Jesus asks:

“Simon, son of John, do you love me?”
— John 21:16

Three times Jesus asks. And three times Peter answers.

But Peter no longer answers with a promise about himself.

He answers with certainty –

“Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”
— John 21:17

The love is still there. But it is no longer innocent love. The relationship has history now. Failure is part of it. Grief is part of it. Forgiveness is part of it.

Peter once said: I know what I will do.

Now he says: You know.

His love for Christ has begun to mature.

And Jesus gives that maturing love somewhere to go:

“Feed my sheep.”
— John 21:17

Peter’s love for Christ is becoming a life of caring for the people Christ loves.

When Love Becomes a Life

Peter loved Christ before Pentecost.

He had followed Him. He had also failed Him. His commitment was real, but love and good intentions had not been enough to make Peter the man he believed himself to be.

Peter knew something now that the younger Peter had never known.

Peter knew loss.

He knew what it felt like to believe he had failed the relationship that mattered most to him.

He had stood in the courtyard and denied the relationship he had been so certain he would defend. Then he watched Christ die carrying the knowledge of what he had done.

That experience had become part of Peter’s love.

By Pentecost, Peter knew he never wanted to be without Christ, no matter the cost.

Then came the Holy Spirit.

“And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.”
— Acts 2:4

Through God’s grace, something changes.

The Peter who had once been afraid to acknowledge Jesus before a servant girl now stands publicly before a crowd and proclaims Him.

“But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them.”
— Acts 2:14

As I read the first chapters of Acts, I notice a different Peter.

There is a steadiness about him.

He still speaks. He still leads. He is still unmistakably Peter. But the man who once seemed to move ahead of himself now seems to know where he is standing.

He reaches into Scripture to explain what is happening. He speaks openly about Christ. When opposition comes, he does not retreat from the relationship he once denied.

By Acts 4, Peter and John are standing before rulers, elders, and scribes because they have been proclaiming Jesus.

Peter is being tested again.

The courtyard had tested his declaration of love. Now public opposition tests what that love has become.

This time Peter does not say:

I do not know Him.

He says:

“We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”
— Acts 4:20

The young Peter had told Christ what he would do.

Now Peter is doing it.

Not because his personality finally became strong enough.

Through God’s grace, Peter is becoming capable of living the love he had always professed.

And his love continues to grow.

That is what happens in marriage too.

The wedding vows do not represent the fullest love a husband and wife will ever know. They begin a lifetime of learning how to live what they promised.

Years give those promises weight.

Life changes the people who made them. There are moments when love comes easily and others when loving becomes a decision. A husband and wife learn things about each other they could not possibly have known when they first stood together and said their vows. They learn things about themselves too.

And still the relationship grows.

I think Peter’s love does the same.

Pentecost is not the moment Peter finishes becoming Peter.

It is another beginning.

The love that once made enormous promises is becoming a love capable of living them.

And when I read Peter’s first letter, I think I begin to see what he did with that love.

What Mature Love Does

When I began reading 1 Peter, something about it felt familiar.

It reminded me of Sirach.

It reminded me of the Didache.

And it brought me back to Ezekiel 34.

Not because they are the same writings. It was the way Peter was speaking that caught my attention.

He was telling people how to live.

Peter writes about holiness and suffering. He speaks about how we treat one another, marriage, humility, hospitality, and responsibility. He addresses elders and tells them how to care for the people entrusted to them.

As I read, I realized:

Peter is ministering to the flock.

Suddenly I was back on the shore.

“Feed my lambs.”
“Tend my sheep.”
“Feed my sheep.”
— John 21:15–17

Jesus had asked Peter whether he loved Him.

Then He gave Peter people to love.

Years later, I can hear that responsibility in Peter’s own words:

“Tend the flock of God that is your charge…”
— 1 Peter 5:2

The flock of God.

Peter had not forgotten whose sheep they were.

That brought me back to Ezekiel 34. God condemns shepherds who care for themselves while neglecting the sheep. The weak are not strengthened. Those who wander are not brought back. The flock scatters.

Then God promises:

“I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep.”
— Ezekiel 34:15

I had already seen Ezekiel 34 when I was studying Peter beside the charcoal fire in John 21.

Now I see it differently.

Peter is no longer simply the man being told to feed the sheep.

He is feeding them.

When love is young, so much of our attention is naturally on the relationship itself.

Do you love me?

Do I love you?

Will you stay?

Will I stay?

But mature love begins looking beyond itself.

In marriage, love eventually has to get up in the middle of the night with a sick child. It has to make decisions when money is tight. It cares for aging parents. Sometimes it carries the other person when that person does not have much left to give.

The love between two people begins affecting everyone entrusted to their care.

I think I see something similar happening in Peter.

His love for Christ has become fruitful.

He does not spend 1 Peter repeatedly telling us how much he loves Jesus.

He tends the flock.

He teaches.

He encourages people who are suffering. He warns them when warning is needed. He tells those with authority not to dominate the people entrusted to them.

Peter writes:

“Do not lord it over those assigned to you, but be examples to the flock.”
— 1 Peter 5:3

That sounds different coming from the man who once tried to tell Jesus how God’s plan should unfold.

Peter’s love has learned something about authority.

And then he writes:

“And when the chief Shepherd is manifested you will obtain the unfading crown of glory.”
— 1 Peter 5:4

Peter is a shepherd now.

But he still knows who the Shepherd is.

To me, this is yet another mark of mature love.

I believe that is what I was noticing when 1 Peter reminded me of Sirach and the Didache. I was hearing an older man concerned with how faith is actually lived.

And I believe that is what Jesus meant when He connected Peter’s declaration of love with those words:

Feed My sheep.

Love for Christ was never meant to stop with Peter and Christ.

It was meant to feed somebody.

When Love Becomes Self-Gift

When Peter was young, he told Christ he was willing to die for Him.

“Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you.”
— Matthew 26:35

At the time, Peter believed it.

I believe that promise came from love.

But Peter did not yet understand what those words would cost.

Years later, Jesus tells him plainly that following Him will eventually require his life.

“When you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go.”
— John 21:18

Then John explains:

“This he said to show by what death he was to glorify God.”
— John 21:19

The young Peter had already said the words.

The older Peter would live them.

That changes how I hear the promise.

When we are young, we can say forever before we know what forever contains.

Marriage teaches us that too.

A husband and wife make vows before they know the exact shape of the years ahead. They do not know which losses will come, what disappointments they will face, or how much one may eventually have to carry for the other.

They make the promise first.

Then life teaches them what the promise means.

I think Peter’s love followed that same kind of path.

His first declaration was sincere.

His life had to grow into it.

By the time Peter was older, love was no longer only something he said to Christ.

It had become a life he was willing to give.

This is where mature love looks different to me from innocent love.

Young love often speaks in absolutes because it cannot yet imagine the cost.

Mature love knows the cost exists and remains anyway.

Peter had known fear.

He had known failure.

He had known what it felt like to believe he had lost the relationship he valued most.

And still he followed.

Eventually, according to ancient Christian tradition, Peter would die for Christ.

The man who once said, I will die with You, finally reached the point where those words were no longer only a promise.

They had become the shape of his life.

That is self-gift.

And I think that is where Peter’s story begins opening another door for me.

Because once I started looking at his love this way, I began seeing something I had not expected.

I began thinking about the people who give their whole lives to God.

A Life Given to God

Once I began seeing Peter’s love this way, I began thinking differently about the people who give their lives to God.

I began thinking about priests and religious.

I had not expected Peter to take me there.

But when I read the older Peter, I see a man whose relationship with Christ has grown through years. His love has survived his own failure. He has experienced forgiveness. He has accepted responsibility for people who do not belong to him but have been entrusted to his care.

And he stays.

That gives me a different perspective on religious vocation.

A person may first hear God’s call when young. There can be excitement in that first yes, certainty about the future, and a love that sincerely believes it knows what giving an entire life will mean.

But how could anyone completely know?

Marriage has helped me understand that.

On a wedding day, two people give themselves to one another without knowing everything that promise will eventually contain. The commitment is real on that day. But twenty, thirty, or fifty years later, those same words have acquired a history.

The love has lived.

I think about a priest’s yes in much the same way.

He gives his life to Christ, but then he has to live that gift.

Years of Masses follow. There are people to baptize and people to bury. There are confessions to hear, homilies to prepare, parishioners he will come to know and others he may struggle to understand. There will be ordinary days when nothing extraordinary seems to happen. His own relationship with God continues through all of it.

The first yes becomes a lived yes.

And suddenly Peter’s words in 1 Peter sound different to me again.

“Tend the flock of God that is your charge.”
— 1 Peter 5:2

Peter knew what it meant to give his life to Christ and then discover that Christ’s people came with the relationship.

Feed My sheep.

That was not separate from Peter’s love for Christ.

It became one of the ways Peter lived that love.

And that gives me a new perspective on the priesthood.

The priest’s relationship with God is deeply personal, but his vocation does not remain only between himself and God. He is given people to serve. His love for Christ becomes intertwined with care for Christ’s Church and the congregation placed before him.

I see something similar in religious life. A man or woman gives a life to God, and that yes continues to mature through prayer, community, work, sacrifice, and years of faithfulness.

I am not saying marriage, priesthood, and religious life are the same vocation.

They are not.

But looking at Peter has helped me see something they share.

Love has to become a life.

A promise eventually has to be lived.

And perhaps that is why Peter’s relationship with Christ reminded me of marriage in the first place.

I wasn’t seeing a wedding.

I was recognizing what happens to love after it has lived through the years.

The Name Fulfilled

When Jesus first met Simon, He gave him a name Simon did not yet understand.

“You are Simon the son of John; you shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).
— John 1:42

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A Dedication

This final chapter of Peter is dedicated to Deacon Gerry, Father Matt, Father Tim, and Father Brent, and to the many priests who have crossed my path throughout my life.

It is also for the priests I will never know.

Writing about Peter and watching his love for Christ mature over a lifetime has given me a different perspective on your yes. I realize now that the yes spoken at the beginning of a vocation is only the beginning. You still have to wake up the next morning and live it. Then live it again the day after that. Years pass, people come and go, and the relationship with Christ continues to grow.

I also dedicate this to Sister Luisa, to the religious sisters and brothers I have known, and to those whose names I will never know.

And I include those whose lives given to God may be much less visible: the tertiary quietly living a religious charism in the world, and the faithful person sitting in the pew whose ordinary life has become a continuing yes to God.

Some serve at the altar. Some teach. Some care for the sick or poor. Some live within religious communities. Others live their vocation in the middle of ordinary life.

Different lives. Different callings.

But after spending this time with Peter, I think I understand something about all of them a little better.

The first yes matters.

But there is something beautiful about the yes that has been lived.

The yes that has acquired years.

The yes that has known joy and disappointment, ordinary days and difficult ones, and still says:

I am Yours.

To those I have known, those who have helped form my own faith, and those I will never meet:

Thank you for continuing to say yes.

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Previous Post in the Series

• The First One Called
• The Fishermen of the Sea of Galilee
• Peter: The Man Jesus Called Rock
• Thinking Like God
• The Name Restored