"We are Witnesses to These Things" - Third Sunday of Easter Year C

In our times the word 'witness' refers to someone who actually sees an event occur and they give a statement to that effect. Our legal system uses the term in a similar way, referring to people who were eyewitnesses or other experts who can tell the court what happened in a particular case. While all of these senses of the word are certainly true, there is another element of the word 'witness' lost to our modern understanding, one that we find today in the readings for holy Mass. These readings provide us with the call to witness, the act of witnessing itself, and the heavenly witness after our life on earth.


In the Gospel reading, John records yet another resurrection appearance of Jesus to his disciples. These men were carrying on their ordinary work of fishing when Jesus appears on the shore and directs them in their work. Once he realizes it it Jesus, Peter jumps in the water to swim to our Lord, not prepared for what Jesus will say to him. After breakfast, Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him. While Peter answers yes to each instance, Jesus commands Peter each time to feed Jesus' sheep. Afterward, Jesus will tell Peter what will happen in his life, indicating even the type of death Peter would suffer. In every instance of this Gospel text, Peter is called to witness to Jesus' resurrection: in swimming ashore, in receiving the command to shepherd the Church of God, and in hearing how his life of witnessing will end. Witnessing involves more than mere words; it involves deeds.


The first reading provides us with another aspect of witnessing. Peter in fact is the main character again in this reading, where he tells the Sanhedrin that the Christian community is the witness to the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Greek term for witness is marturia, a word that provides us with our English word 'martyr'. To be a witness, therefore, is not merely to speak words, but to perform the works of Christ on earth: to go about doing good and to suffer for the sake of Jesus' name. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, "The duty of Christians to take part in the life of the Church impels them to act as witnesses of the Gospel and of the obligations that flow from it. This witness is a transmission of the faith in words and deeds. Witness is an act of justice that establishes the truth or makes it known. 'All Christians by the example of their lives and the witness of their word, wherever they live, have an obligation to manifest the new man which they have put on in Baptism and to reveal the power of the Holy Spirit by whom they were strengthened at Confirmation" (CCC #2472, quoting Vatican II Ad Gentes #11).


By witnessing to the resurrection of Christ and the ministry of reconciliation throughout one's life, even to the point of death, the Christian then becomes worthy to partake of the heavenly liturgy John describes in the second reading from the book of Revelation. This final act of witnessing is our reward for a life of faith on earth, a reward we do not earn but one freely given to those who live in response to the love God has shown to us all. Blessed Pope John XXIII now partakes of this heavenly worship, and while on earth he offered us a prayer that aptly concludes our reflection: "O Lord, in return for so much tenderness you ask me anxiously one thing only: 'My son do you love me? Lord, how can I answer you? See my tears, my throbbing heart...What can I say? 'Lord, you know that I love you.' Oh, if I could love you as Peter loved you, with the fervor of Paul and all the martyrs! My love must be joined to humility, a low opinion of myself and scorn for the things of this world - and then make of me what you will, an apostle, a martyr, Lord! At the sight of my most gentle Jesus humbling himself and, like a meek lamb, submitting to persecution, torture, treachery, and death, my soul is bewildered, ashamed, prostrated: I can find no words - even my pride hangs its head in shame. 'O most sweet Jesus, comfort of the pilgrim soul, with you I am voiceless, by my very silence speaks to you! Oh, after so many graces, showered upon me during my long life, there is nothing now that I can refuse. You have shown me the way, O Jesus. 'I will follow you wherever you go,' to sacrifice, to mortification, to death" (Journal of a Soul, p. 91-92, 318).