Saturday of the Seventh Week of Pascal Time [English]

St. John and St. Peter Running to the Tomb by Eugenio Burnand (1898)

Healing from Comparison to Enter into Your Own Story

Mass Readings: Acts 28:16-20, 30-31; Psalm 11 (10); Jn 21:20-25

Here we are at the very last day of the Easter season, on the eve of Pentecost. Last Sunday, we were in the Upper Room, hanging on the words of Jesus as He raised His eyes to heaven to entrust us to the Father. The heart of His message was a promise of protection and belonging: we are not orphans lost in the cosmos, our names are written in heaven, and we are kept in the most holy Name of God. All this week, the liturgy has shown us how this divine safekeeping unfolds through the tears of separations, the chains of prisons, and the flaws of our personal stories. Today, the Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel of John close together: it is time to take stock. And the Lord chooses this precise moment to root out from our hearts a subtle poison that destroys our inner peace: the sideways glance, comparison, this human mania for measuring our existence against that of others.

First Point: The Hidden Fruitfulness of Confined Situations

The book of the Acts of the Apostles ends in a surprising way. Indeed, during this Easter season, we followed Paul through storms, shipwrecks, and courtrooms, and we would have loved to see him enter Rome as a victor, preaching in the public squares. Yet, the text tells us that he is confined, with permission to live in the city, but under the constant supervision of a soldier. He wears chains, and yet, instead of complaining about his lot or envying the freedom of the other apostles who travel the world, Paul makes an existential choice: he rents a lodging, stays there for two whole years, and welcomes all who come to him. The text insists: he proclaimed the kingdom of God with complete boldness and without hindrance.

This is an immense spiritual insight: the worst of prisons is never that of external walls or the constraints of our lives, but that of a heart turned inward that refuses to love right where it is. Paul cannot move, his freedom is confined, but his heart is immense; he makes his constraint the very place of his mission. Often, we think that to be happy or to serve God, our circumstances would need to change. We say to ourselves: if I had better health, if I had a different job, if my family situation were different, then I could finally blossom. This is an illusion of the mind: the Gospel does not depend on our comfort! It is precisely at the heart of our limits, of our unavoidable obligations, of our sometimes narrow days, that Christ wants to manifest His power. When we accept our own reality as the ground where God awaits us, the chain no longer becomes an obstacle, but the channel of an unexpected grace.

Second Point: The "What Is That to You?" Which Makes Us Free

This attitude of Paul is directly illuminated when we read today's Gospel. We are at the end of the Gospel of John; Jesus has just forgiven Peter for his three denials and has said to him again: "Follow me." Peter is rehabilitated, he has received his unique calling, he knows he will have to give his life for the Master. But barely has he started walking again when he turns around and sees John, the beloved disciple, the one who had leaned against Jesus' chest during the Last Supper, walking behind them. Peter cannot help himself and asks: "Lord, what about him?" This is the typical reflex of comparison, a vice that we all have. As soon as the Lord asks us for an act of faith, a renunciation, or to carry a cross, we feel the need to look at our neighbor's life to check if theirs is not gentler.

Jesus' answer is a punch of tenderness that comes to free us from our neuroses: "If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You, follow me." Christ, in fact, refuses to enter into our comparative calculations; He says to Peter: John's story is none of your business, it is mine. You, stop living vicariously, stop wanting to evaluate your path in the light of his. The Christian faith is not an industrial production where everyone must live the same experience: the Holy Spirit, in fact, is a craftsman who does custom work. There are lives that are made for the deep sea and public martyrdom, like Peter's; there are lives that are made to remain in secret, silent fidelity, and long waiting, like John's: one is not better than the other; the only thing that matters is to be at the rendezvous of your own story. When we are healed of spiritual jealousy, we finally discover the joy of being ourselves under the Father's gaze.

Third Point: The Gospel Continues to Be Written in Our Lives

The final point of the Gospel of John opens onto an infinity: "There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written." This sentence is not a poetic exaggeration but a concrete theological reality. It means that Jesus' action did not stop the day the apostles died and the New Testament was closed. The risen Christ continues to act through the centuries, and the book of His wonders is written every day in the anonymous pages of our ordinary existences.

The world is not enough to contain God's love because this love multiplies every time a human being makes an invisible act of faith. When we find the strength to forgive in the secret of our home, when we offer a painful day of work with love, when we remain faithful in the midst of spiritual dryness, we are writing a line of this infinite book. Paul testified from his small apartment in Rome, John testified through his writings in his old age in Ephesus. Their styles were opposite, their destinies had nothing in common, but their testimony was true because they let Christ live in them. Let us not seek to accomplish extraordinary exploits that belong to someone else's story: let us simply let the truth of Jesus fill our present reality. It is in this way that we honor last Sunday's prayer: by showing the world that we are inhabited by the Name of the Father, right where we are planted.

Conclusion and Application for Our Day

This Saturday's Liturgy invites us to close the Easter season by taking stock of our glances and anchoring ourselves in our unique mission.

• Identify the trap of our sideways glance: Today, notice those moments when you begin to compare yourself to others, whether on social media, in your family, or at work. As soon as you feel a sense of frustration, injustice, or envy rising, listen to Jesus telling you personally: What is that to you? You, follow me. Let this word conquer your judgments and bring you back to the beauty of your own calling.

• Evangelize our lodging: Like Paul in Rome, look at what constitutes your space of constraint today — a situation of fatigue, a day confined at home or at the office, routine tasks... Do not waste your energy dreaming of an ideal freedom. Welcome each person, each phone call, each obligation with complete boldness: make your present reality the place where the Kingdom of God is proclaimed without hindrance.

• Accept the style of our vocation: Do not force your nature to resemble a model of holiness that does not correspond to you. If you are made for action like Peter, act with humility. If you are made for listening and the shadows like John, remain there with joy: it is your authenticity that will make your testimony true and credible for the people of our time.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, I thank You for the gift of Your Word which comes to free me this morning from the tyranny of comparison. Thank You for reminding me that You did not create me to spend my life watching the trajectory of others, but to write a unique story with You.

Heal my sideways glance, Lord. Deliver me from this chronic dissatisfaction that makes me envy the peace, the talents, or the path of my brothers and sisters. When doubt assails me, whisper to my soul Your sweet reproach: What is that to you? You, follow me.

Forgive my rebellions against my own limits and my daily chains. Give me the courage of Saint Paul to know how to inhabit my present with boldness, even when I feel confined or helpless. I entrust to You my home, my work, my encounters of this day: make my constraints a space of welcome for Your grace.

Holy Spirit, divine Defender, come and set me ablaze on the threshold of Pentecost. Make my ordinary existence a living page of the Gospel that the world cannot contain. Teach me to rest on the chest of Jesus like John, in order to draw the strength to remain faithful until the end, with no other ambition than to do the Father's will. Amen.