I have to confess:  more often than not, when reading the Gospels, I identify with Peter.  Today’s readings are surely a case in point.  When Peter comes to Jesus, complaining about all he and his fellow apostles had given up to follow Him, I could feel myself immediately agreeing.  It does appear to cost a lot to follow Christ in today’s world.  Whether it’s getting up and dressing for Mass on Sunday morning rather than lounging with a cup of coffee and the sports page; whether it’s supporting my parish rather than replacing worn carpet in the living room; whether it’s volunteering my services after work when all I really want to do is go home and put my feet up, sometimes it just seems hard to live an active, everyday Christian life.

Of course, Jesus had an answer for Peter and for me.  His answer was His promise of the joy of redemption.  He reminded Peter that those who followed Him—and who thus became part of His divinity as much as He became part of their humanity—would “receive in this present age a hundred times” more than anything they had given up.  And Peter, later at least, must have understood because in the first reading he writes so joyfully of “the divine favor that was destined to be yours,” a favor, a blessing, a gift so magnificent that “Into these matters angels long to search.”

It is meditations such as these that sustain me in my struggle to follow Peter’s admonition to “live soberly” and become “holy” in all my conduct.  So I get up on Sunday morning, I write that check, I seek to be of service because there is a joy found in that.  It is the joy of my inclusion in the Body of Christ.  It is the joy of my redemption.