Memorial of Saint Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs
My father has Parkinsonism. He doesn’t have Parkinson’s Disease but a condition with similar debilitating symptoms. Part of that for him has been a gradual loss of mobility over the past several years. As a man who was a runner (even ran a marathon) and who loved going for walks and hikes in the woods, this has been particularly challenging. And difficult for the rest of us who love him. This is not how any of us imagined it would be for him in his “golden years” with my mom.
I couldn’t help but think of my dad as I read the somewhat odd verse about Peter’s eventual death near the end of today’s gospel passage (John 21:15-19). After Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him (and to feed/tend his sheep), he continues, “Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”
Biblical commentary tells us this somewhat unusual phrase was probably originally a proverb about old age, which in this context is being used as a “figurative reference” to Peter’s eventual crucifixion. The passage ends with Jesus’s invitation, “Follow me.”
As I witness my previously proudly independent father having to be dressed by others and pushed in a wheelchair (although not giving up on trying), I become more aware of how much our lives really are out of our control. Even those of us who are currently fully able-bodied may lose our mobility, or our very lives, in the blink of an eye (or the shot of a gun).
What IS in our control is to choose, like Peter, to love Jesus – to “follow” him, even through suffering and death, whatever that may look like. This is the other thing I’ve witnessed in my father: his unyielding faith, even in the face of struggle and loss and disappointment. And that gives me hope. Yes, “Follow me” may lead to the cross, but it also leads to resurrection. May God grant us the strength and faith of Peter, and my father, to follow the One who loves us and asks us to love in return. Amen.
~Eileen Miller