Jesus

by James Martin

  Jesus forgives Peter because he loves him, because he knows that his friend needs forgiveness to be free, and because he knows that the leader of his church will need to forgive others many times. And Jesus forgives totally, going beyond what would be expected—going so far as to establish Peter as head of the church.11 It would have made more earthly sense for Jesus to appoint another, non-betraying apostle to head his church. Why give the one who denied him this important leadership role? Why elevate the manifestly sinful one over the rest? One reason may be to show the others what forgiveness is.

  In this way Jesus embodies the Father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, who not only forgives the son, but also, to use a fishing metaphor, goes overboard. Jesus goes beyond forgiving and setting things right. A contemporary equivalent would be a tenured professor stealing money from a university, apologizing, being forgiven by the board of trustees, and then being hired as the school’s president. People would find this extraordinary—and it is.

  In response, Peter will ultimately offer his willingness to lay down his life for Christ. But on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he can’t know the future. He can’t understand fully what he is agreeing to. Feed your sheep? Which sheep? The Twelve? The disciples? The whole world? This is often the case for us too. Even if we accept the call we can be confused about where God is leading us. When reporters used to ask the former Jesuit superior general Pedro Arrupe where the Jesuit Order was going, he would say, “I don’t know!” Father Arrupe was willing to follow, even if he didn’t know precisely what God had in mind. Peter says yes to the unknowable, because the question comes from Jesus.

  Both Christ’s forgiveness and Peter’s response show us love. God’s love is limitless, unconditional, radical. And when we have experienced that love, we can share it.

  The ability to forgive and to accept forgiveness is an absolute requirement of the Christian life. Conversely, the refusal to forgive leads ineluctably to spiritual death. You may know families in which vindictiveness acts like a cancer, slowly eating away at love. You may know people whose marriages have been destroyed by a refusal to forgive. One of my friends described a couple he knew as “two scorpions in a jar,” both eagerly waiting to sting the other with barbs and hateful comments. We see the communal version of this in countries torn by sectarian violence, where a climate of mutual recrimination and mistrust leads only to increasing levels of pain.

  The Breakfast by the Sea shows that Jesus lived the forgiveness he preached. Jesus knew that forgiveness is a life-giving force that reconciles, unites, and empowers. The Gospel by the Sea is a gospel of forgiveness, one of the central Christian virtues. It is the radical stance of Jesus, who, when faced with the one who denied him, forgave him and appointed him head of the church, and the man who, in agony on the Cross, forgave his executioners. Forgiveness is a gift to the one who forgives, because it frees from resentment; and to the one who needs forgiveness, because it frees from guilt.

  Forgiveness is the liberating force that allowed Peter to cast himself into the water at the sound of Jesus’s voice, and it is the energy that gave him a voice with which to testify to his belief in Christ.

  Forgiveness enables us to renew ourselves as disciples and respond when we hear Jesus say to us, as he said to the disciples by the Sea of Galilee, “Follow me.”

  WHAT DID THE RISEN CHRIST do during the remainder of his time on earth?

  The Gospels are tight-lipped about this period. While they describe at length the Passion and death of Jesus, they list relatively few Resurrection appearances beyond the four I have mentioned (to Mary Magdalene, to Thomas, to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and at the Breakfast by the Sea.) In Mark, he also appears to “the eleven”; in Matthew he appears to the disciples in Galilee, as he told Mary Magdalene and the other women; and in Luke, after Emmaus, he appears to the disciples and reassures them that it is truly him by eating some fish in their presence. In the Gospel of John, he also appears to the disciples, who were locked behind closed doors. But all in all, there are not very many Resurrection appearances, which is often a surprise for newcomers to the Gospels. And it’s always been something of a frustration for me, because my spirituality is so closely tied with the Resurrection.

  Almost as maddening is a line from John saying that Jesus did “many other signs in the presence of the disciples.”12 I want to ask, “Does that include after the Resurrection? If so, like what?” But perhaps this literary diffidence reflects the inability to describe experiences that were essentially indescribable. Rather than lament the appearances we do not have, it is better to be grateful for the few we do.

  This brings us to how Jesus closed his time on earth, a story commemorated in both the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, in a spot that has been venerated by countless pilgrims and at least one saint.

  ON OUR FIRST EXCURSION to the Mount of Olives, George and I had hiked to the top of the hill in order to see the Chapel of the Ascension, which commemorates the end of Jesus’s time on earth, when the Gospels of Mark and Luke (and the Acts of the Apostles) report that he was “taken up” from the disciples into heaven.13 Luke reports that Jesus led them to Bethany, blessed them, withdrew from them, and then “was carried up into heaven.” This seems to happen almost immediately following the Resurrection.

  The Acts of the Apostles, also written by Luke, provides further details—but Acts places the Ascension forty days after the Resurrection, somewhere on the Mount of Olives. Jesus ascends into a cloud. As the disciples stare into the sky, “two men in white robes” suddenly stand beside them and ask, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”14 In other words, “Why are you standing around? Get to work!”

  The attraction of the Chapel of the Ascension for George and me was not only that it marked the traditional place where Jesus ascended into heaven, but that it held an important place in the life of St. Ignatius Loyola. In 1523, early after his conversion from a hotheaded soldier to a devout believer, Ignatius set out on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. For a number of reasons, Ignatius felt drawn to visit the Holy Land; mainly he was determined to visit the “holy places” and remain to “help souls” there. One of the places Ignatius longed to see was this spot, particularly to venerate the stone on which Jesus was standing before the Ascension—and where, legend had it, he left behind two footprints.

  I didn’t need Jerome Murphy-O’Connor to tell me that the historicity of the stone, let alone the footprints, was highly unlikely, but one thing was historically certain: St. Ignatius had visited that location. That was good enough for George and me. So after our visit to the Garden of Gethsemane we trudged up to the Chapel of the Ascension.

  It was grueling. Not as punishing as our trek through the Valley of the Shadow of Death but grueling nonetheless, almost straight up the hillside in the heat. We paused every few minutes to catch our breath. I imagined Jesus and the disciples commuting between Bethany and Jerusalem.

  “The disciples must have been very fit!” I said to George.

  “I’m on the Mount of Olives,” he said, “and I know I’m supposed to be thinking pious thoughts. But all I can think about is how much I’d like a martini with olives right now.”

  It was a near miracle that Ignatius made it up this hill. Before his conversion experience he had suffered a dreadful wound—a cannonball had fractured his leg in a battle in 1521—that left him with a lifelong limp. His entire pilgrimage to Jerusalem from Barcelona was crowded with peril. The future saint faced illness, met up with a mother and daughter who, like him, were begging for alms (they at one point were in danger of being “violated” in a rooming house until Ignatius intervened), and passed an uncomfortable night in a leaky church. And he hadn’t even made it past Rome. Later in Venice, Ignatius gave away what little money he had and then he fell so ill that when he asked a local doctor if he could make it to Jerusalem, t
he doctor said that it was possible, “if he wanted to be buried there.” He sailed via Cyprus and arrived in Jaffa, in what is now Israel, and finally reached the Holy City after several uncomfortable donkey rides.

  Ignatius had planned to stay in Jerusalem to “help souls,” and so he carried with him letters of recommendation for the Franciscans, who were in charge of the holy sites. To his dismay, however, the Franciscans felt that it was too dangerous a time for him to stay. Other pilgrims had been abducted and even killed. Ignatius protested, telling the Franciscan local superior that he felt this to be a call from God. The Franciscans told him that they had the authority from the pope to kick him out. Which they did.

  But not before Ignatius could see the chapel commemorating the Ascension. Here, from his autobiography, is the saint’s vivid description of the end of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which comes immediately after his narrative about the meeting with the Franciscans, in which they ordered him to leave. Ignatius refers to himself as “he.”

  When this [his meeting with the Franciscans] was over, returning to where he had been before, he felt a strong desire to visit Mount Olivet [the Mount of Olives] again before leaving, since it was not Our Lord’s will that he remain in those holy places. On Mount Olivet there is a stone from which Our Lord rose up to heaven, and his footprints are still seen there; this was what he wanted to see again.

  So without saying anything or taking a guide . . . he slipped away from the others and went to Mount Olivet. But the guards would not let him enter. He gave them a penknife that he carried, and after praying with great consolation, he felt the desire to go to Bethphage [where Jesus began his journey into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday]. While there he remembered that he had not noted on Mount Olivet what side the right foot was, or on what side the left. Returning there, I think he gave his scissors to the guards so they would let him enter.15

  Almost five hundred years later, George and I trudged up the same hill. As I panted up the steep incline, I expected to catch sight of another grand church like the Church of All Nations, in the Garden of Gethsemane, or another church nearby, the Church of Dominus Flevit, which marks the spot where Jesus is supposed to have wept over the city of Jerusalem not only for its rejection of his message but, as the Gospel of Luke says, for coming tribulations for the city.16

  The Ascension shrine is more modest—much more modest. Originally, a fourth-century church, the center of whose roof was open to the sky, probably stood on the site. In later years, the Crusaders built a reconstruction of that church as well as a monastery adjoining it. In the twelfth century the site passed into the hands of Muslims, who also believe in the Ascension. Today it is a simple, small stone building, shaped like an igloo, with an opening in the domed ceiling. We paid a Muslim caretaker a few shekels to enter (not having a penknife or scissors).

  Inside were roughly twenty Indian pilgrims. Their priest was reading from a Bible in Malayalam, presumably about the Ascension. George and I squeezed in. Suddenly they started singing a lovely hymn, which sounded almost like a chant. It seemed to float up to the ceiling and leave through the oculus in the roof. In between the feet of our fellow pilgrims we could see a small, shiny, uneven stone in the floor, bordered by a marble square. Two indentations in the rock were clearly visible: these were the legendary footprints of Jesus. After two weeks of feeling connected to Jesus, I suddenly felt connected to Ignatius, the poor man with a limp who, knowing he was being kicked out of the Holy Land, walked painfully up the Mount of Olives to pay his devotion to the site where he believed Christ had stood.

  After Ignatius snuck into the chapel, one of the Franciscans got wind of it, entered the chapel, grabbed him by the arm, and led him away. But for Ignatius, seeing those footprints was enough. “He [Ignatius] felt great consolation from Our Lord, so it seemed to him that he saw Christ over him continually.”17

  George and I walked down the hill, following the path that Jesus had taken as he made his way down from Bethany to Jerusalem, and the path Ignatius had taken as he made his way back to his new life, a pilgrimage that would lead him to the founding of the order named after the one whose footprints he believed he had just seen.

  * * *

  THE BREAKFAST BY THE SEA

  John 21:1–19

  * * *

  After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

  Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the lake. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.

  When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

  When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER 25

  Amen

  ON THE FINAL DAY of our pilgrimage, I rose early and rushed to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This time I made it to a Mass in the Franciscan chapel. After breakfast George and I walked to the Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu, outside the city walls.

  I wanted to help George find something he had been searching for. The Church of St. Peter commemorates the place where Peter had denied Jesus three times. And early in our stay we were told that in this church was a chapel dedicated to St. Dismas, the “Good Thief.” You’ll remember that when we were looking for Emmaus, we stopped at the Trappist monastery in Latrun, which reputedly had a chapel to Dismas. Because the monastery was closed, we never were able to see it (if it was indeed there), and since then we had heard conflicting reports about the actual location of the chapel. Or, as George had started to call it, the Legendary Chapel of St. Dismas.

  The last time I had visited St. Peter in Gallicantu I spent my time in the dungeon where Jesus was supposedly held captive before his crucifixion, but I failed to visit the upstairs church. Today, however, as George pi
cked up a brochure at the entrance, I started exploring the lovely interior, which is decorated with several large mosaics. A few seconds later, I noticed it. On the left side of the church was an especially elegant mosaic. Under a lapis sky, a man looking heavenward stretched out his arms in a cruciform position. Behind him were the creamy walls of Jerusalem. Two figures knelt on either side of him in prayer. Above was a legend: S. Dismas, Le Bon Larron, St. Dismas, the Good Thief.

  “Pssst,” I said to George. He wandered over. “Look who I found.”

  George looked up, smiled, and said, “Finally.”

  I let him sit for some time, to pray and perhaps think about the inmates with whom he worked. I’ve always admired my friend’s work with inmates, whom many people think don’t even deserve to be ministered to. At one point during my theology studies in Boston I ended up working for George as part of my ministry practicum. In the Suffolk County House of Corrections I watched him treat the inmates, both men and women, with great care. And on a recent trip to San Francisco, I visited him at San Quentin and watched him work in death row, where seven hundred men were incarcerated for some of the worst crimes imaginable.

  As ever, his sense of humor does not desert him on the job, nor does his eye for the amusing fail him. One Friday an inmate wished him a good weekend by saying, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” George said to me, “Coming from a serial killer, that leaves me a lot of latitude.” Another man on death row said, “Father George, we like you so much, we wish you lived here with us!” George accepted that as a compliment.