In today’s Gospel, Jesus restores Peter not by revisiting his failure, but by inviting him three times to love. Each question reaches deeper into Peter’s heart, and each command entrusts him with a new dimension of care: “Feed my lambs… Tend my sheep… Feed my sheep.” What begins as a moment of healing becomes a mission.
For the Aggregation of the Blessed Sacrament, this passage resonates with the spirituality of Saint Peter Julian Eymard. Like Peter on the shore, Eymard began with sincere but limited love. He was a faithful Marist (Society of Mary) priest, yet Christ called him to something more — a mission centered entirely on the Eucharist. His path was marked by resistance, misunderstanding, and sacrifice, but he followed the same pattern of trust as Peter.
Eymard understood that the Eucharist is the place where Jesus continues to “feed His sheep.” In the 19th century, when many believed they had to be nearly perfect before receiving Communion, Eymard proclaimed the opposite: the Eucharist is food for the weak, strength for the sinner, and the daily bread that forms us in Christ’s own love. Peter’s imperfect love was accepted and transformed; so, too, Eymard taught, our imperfect love is welcomed and perfected in the Eucharist.
Jesus’ threefold command becomes, in Eymard’s hands, a Eucharistic program: to nourish beginners in faith, to shepherd communities toward unity, and to feed all God’s people with the Bread of Life.
In this Gospel, Christ asks Peter, and us, not for perfection, but for love that is willing to grow. And he gives us the Eucharist so that our love may become like his.
Prayer:
Lord Jesus, you know my heart and my weakness. As You restored Peter and called him to feed your flock, strengthen me through the gift of your Eucharist. Make my love sincere, my service generous, and my life a witness to your presence in the Blessed Sacrament. Amen.
