BY THE BONFIRE
Homily of Most Rev. Pablo Virgilio David, DD, for the Ordination of Bishop Elias Ayuban, Jr., CMF, DD, JCD
3 Dec 2025, John 21:15-19
Thank you for delegating to me the task of preaching this homily, Cardinal Joe Advincula, upon the request of Bishop Eli. It is a joy to be with you all in this Eucharistic celebration dear sisters and brothers on this solemn occasion of the ordination of our dear Claretian brother Elias Ayuban, Jr to the Episcopal ministry. Thank you dear Claretians for being here for him. Today you lose a provincial but you are contributing a new bishop to the Philippine church. I hope the other religious congregations are listening. We are honored to have with us the Archbishop of Manila as principal consecrator and Bishops Nes Ongtioco and Abet Uy as Co-consecrators , along with the representative of the Holy Father, our beloved Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Charles John Brown, and the archbishops and bishops of the Philippines. Let me wear my hat now as CBCP president and take advantage of this opportunity to thank Bishop Nes Ongtioco for his 21 years of dedicated ministry as bishop of Cubao from its very inception in 2003.
Let me share some thoughts now on the famous appendix to the Gospel of John whose original ending according to bible scholars was the end of chapter 20. I think of chapter 21 of John’s Gospel as some kind of a postscript, such as when we add some afterthoughts to a letter we have already closed and signed . People sometimes ask me what Jesus did during those 40 days after he was raised from the dead, before he ascended into heaven. My simple answer is, he needed time to also raise his disciples back from the dead. As we all know, something about them had died also, after their leader and master was crucified.
The stories in the Gospels about the apparitions of the risen Jesus to his disciples have a common pattern—he is restoring them. Remember how two of them had fallen out and broken away already. Those guys were not just routinely traveling to Emmaus; they were running away. And the risen Jesus incognito had to intercept them to reroute their journey back to Jerusalem, to reunite them with the community.
There was one of them who was not in speaking terms with the rest. I am of course talking about Thomas; John says in a cryptic way he was “not with them” when Jesus first appeared in the upper room. He had to touch Jesus’ wounds first before his own wounded relationship with his community could be be healed. Mary Magdalene and the other women had to struggle with the sexist attitudes of these androcentric, patriarchal male disciples who wouldn’t trust their testimony just because they were women.
The disciples were all actually in a deep state of trauma and grief. They were too bewildered and confused to even understand the instruction of the angels that Jesus was asking them to return to Galilee and meet him there. So they huddled together like scared dogs in Jerusalem licking their wounds. Jesus had to break into that upper room to be able to get them out and liberate them from their collective fear.
In today’s Gospel, we have the reversal of the denial scene which happened at sundown. This one is happening at sunrise. I use my imagination and I am inclined to believe that there was also a rooster crowing, not to announce the coming of darkness but to welcome the breaking of dawn by the sea of Tiberias. There is also a bonfire, by the way, to remind us of that infamous bonfire where Peter was warming his hands when a servant girl asked him three times if he was not one of the disciples of the man from Nazareth who was under trial for sedition.
John has a very interesting way of intensifying the drama of this Easter Encounter of Jesus with Peter, a similar scene that would lead to the removal of the black veil that covered his heart and soul. But first he had to answer the question DO YOU LOVE ME? Not once, but three times. Enough to be able to bring back to Peter’s memory the three times that he had said, I DO NOT KNOW HIM. It is Jesus’ way of raising him back from the dead—by inviting him to say one word of love, for every word of denial. I call it a renewal of vows.
John tells us Peter was grieved after Jesus asked him a third time. The Greek word is “ELUPETHE”. Other versions translate it differently—like, Peter was “distressed,” “saddened,” or “deeply hurt.” I do not think it was because he felt that the Lord was doubting him. Rather, he was doubting himself all over again.
I imagine that Peter was in tears when he said, “Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you.” I try to read his heart and I have a feeling that what he wanted to say was, “Lord, you know how weak, how consistently inconsistent I have been since that day when we first met. Didn’t I fall on my knees when you filled up my boat the first time and tell you, “Leave me Lord, I am a sinful man.”? And when you showed up again by the shore and filled my boat a second time, and John said it was you, didn’t I jump into the water to hide my face from you in shame? I have told you over and over again, I AM NOT WORTHY, I AM NOT QUALIFIED, I AM WEAK. I can only say, I love you, in spite of myself.”
In Japan they have this art of putting together the pieces of a broken ceramic bowl using 24-karat powdered gold mixed with lacquer, as glue. The binding agent is more expensive than the bowl itself. The whole things is done like a religious ritual. The owner of the bowl does it with utmost care. He restores the broken bowl but in a manner that does not hide the cracks. It is precisely the cracks that will turn the broken bowl into a precious piece of art. Isn’t that beautiful?
We are all wounded people. Christianity was never meant only for the holy and deserving. The Eucharist is not an exclusive meal for the righteous but a body broken for broken people. That’s why Jesus says, “this is the new covenant in my blood poured out for you and for many so that sins may be forgiven.”
Look, the one who received the first morsel of bread was Judas. It was Jesus’ way of transforming a meal of betrayal into a meal of forgiveness. We are all like broken bowls ourselves. But the good news is—there is no brokenness that cannot be healed by the precious blood of the lamb. It is a more precious binding agent than gold. Jesus healed Peter before he could turn him into a minister of healing. What restored Peter was an invitation to make an act of faith: do you love me? One word of love for every word of denial. Only then can we truly start following him and representing him.
If I were to give a title to the Gospel narrative that Bishop Eli has chosen for his ordination, i’d propose to call it: “The Story of Peter’s Resurrection”. He had to learn to be a lamb, before he could grow into a Shepherd. He had to allow himself to be fed, before he could feed the flock. And before he could lead the Church, he had to learn to die to himself and to allow Jesus to lead him by the hand like a little child.
I will tell you one secret, all of us bishops and priests, and I am sure including Pope Francis himself, we draw a lot of consolation from this Gospel passage. Sometimes, like Peter, we are also tempted to despair about ourselves when we are confronted by our own weaknesses. Remember Paul asking the Lord to remove his “thorn in the flesh,” only to be told, “My grace is enough for you, for in weakness power reaches perfection; it is when I am weak that I am strong.“ This passage is consoling for us because it assures us that with Jesus, even if our commitments are breakable, they are also renewable. He just wants to make sure that if we go on with our mission to feed the lambs, it is for no other reason than FOR LOVE OF THE SHEPHERD TO WHOM THEY BELONG.