Published: May 23, 2026
There is a restlessness in Peter that most of us will recognize. The Risen Lord has just spoken to him directly, personally, tenderly. Jesus has rehabilitated Peter after his three-fold denial, restored him through a three-fold declaration of love, and entrusted him with the greatest commission imaginable: feed my sheep, tend my lambs, shepherd the flock. The path ahead has been laid out with love and clarity. And yet, almost immediately, Peter turns around. He sees the Beloved Disciple — the one who had leaned on Jesus at the Last Supper, the one who stood at the foot of the Cross — and asks what seems like a perfectly reasonable question: "Lord, what about him?"
It is such a human question. It is the question of comparison, the anxiety of wondering whether someone else's path is easier or harder, more important or less so, more favored by God or less. Peter has just been told something sobering: that he will one day be led where he does not want to go, that his fidelity to Christ will cost him everything, that his death will glorify God. In the face of such a demanding word, the temptation is immediate and instinctive — look around, see what someone else has been given, and measure one's own calling against theirs.
Jesus does not indulge this. His answer is at once gentle and firm, personal and universal: "What if I want him to remain until I come? What concern is it of yours? You follow me." This is not a dismissive rebuke. It is an act of great mercy, because it frees Peter — and each one of us — from the exhausting and ultimately futile work of comparing our lives to the lives of others. It redirects Peter's gaze away from the Beloved Disciple and back to the only One who truly matters: Jesus himself.
The spiritual tradition of the Church has long recognized that each soul is called to a unique and unrepeatable relationship with God. The Catechism teaches that God calls each person by name, and that our vocations — while connected in the one Body of Christ — are not interchangeable. What God asks of one disciple He does not necessarily ask of another. What one soul is given to bear, another may not be given. The graces distributed, the sufferings permitted, the joys bestowed — all of these are ordered to the individual good of each person and to the good of the whole Church, according to the wisdom of the One who knows us more deeply than we know ourselves.
This is why comparing our spiritual lives to the lives of others is not only futile but can actually be harmful. When we fixate on the apparent ease or difficulty of another's path, we risk missing what God is saying to us directly. We stop listening. We stop following. We turn our heads — as Peter did — and in that moment of distraction, we lose sight of the Lord who is walking right before us. Comparison is, in this sense, a spiritual distraction that the enemy is all too eager to exploit. It takes our eyes off the giver of all gifts and places them on the gifts themselves, breeding either envy or pride, neither of which leads us closer to God.
The closing verses of today's Gospel open a further horizon of reflection. The Evangelist declares that the testimony of the Beloved Disciple is true, and then adds something astonishing: that there are many other things Jesus did, so many that "if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written." This is not mere rhetorical flourish. It is a theological statement about the inexhaustible richness of Christ. Every action of Jesus, every word, every gesture of healing and mercy and truth, carries within it an infinite weight of meaning that no human account can fully capture. The Gospels are not simply historical records; they are windows onto a mystery that exceeds all human comprehension and will never be fully exhausted.
This means that whenever we open the Scriptures, whenever we sit with the words of Jesus, we are encountering something that cannot be reduced to a single interpretation or a single devotional insight. There is always more. There is always a depth we have not yet plumbed, a grace we have not yet received, a light we have not yet been given to see. The spiritual life is not a subject we eventually master; it is a relationship with a Person whose love is infinite, and who has promised to reveal Himself progressively to those who follow Him faithfully.
What, then, does this Gospel ask of us in the practical ordering of our days? It asks us to resist the temptation of comparison. In an age in which comparison is nearly inescapable — in which we are surrounded by images of other people's lives, their apparent spiritual ease and public victories — the command of Jesus is both counter-cultural and deeply liberating: "What concern is it of yours? You follow me." We are not called to follow other people's paths. We are not called to evaluate whether God has been fair in the distribution of gifts and graces. We are called to follow Jesus on the path He has chosen specifically for us, which is the only path that leads to our particular flourishing and our particular holiness.
This Gospel also invites us to deepen our trust in the testimony of the Church. The Beloved Disciple wrote so that we might know his testimony is true. The Gospel is not a collection of myths or pious legends; it is a witness to real events, to the words and deeds of a real Person who rose from the dead and who continues to act in the world through His Body the Church and through the sacraments. We are invited to stake our lives on this testimony, to trust that the tradition handed on to us carries the very life of Christ within it.
As we close the Easter season and stand on the threshold of Pentecost, the call of Christ comes to us with fresh urgency. The Spirit is about to be poured out. The Church is about to be sent into the world with fire and wind and the power of God. And the invitation remains what it was for Peter on that shore by the Sea of Tiberias: stop looking around, stop measuring, stop wondering about everyone else's journey. Look at Jesus. And follow Him.
Gospel: John 21:20-25 | Lectionary: 302 | Saturday of the Seventh Week of Easter