After Saint Peter denied Christ even three times, a cock crowed, meaning that his conscience started pricking, and he cried bitterly. All this happened because of his self-confidence. God, Who knows the hearts of all, warned the apostles that when the temptation comes they will all deny Him. Saint Peter filled with self-confidence and pride acts rashly announcing in front of all of them that even if everyone loses their faith in Him, he never will. Then God, Who knows the hearts of all, with His gentle speech, reproaches him not to think so highly of himself, since he will be the first to deny Christ.

The temptation comes, God hides himself, the grace retracts and Peter denies Christ. The crock crows, the conscience pricks, Peter realizes his sin and cries bitterly. He cries and regrets for denying Chris. While he had Christ beside him i.e. while he had God’s grace inside him, he used to announce that he will be with Christ and die for Him, but when the grace retracted itself he denied Christ three times.

After renouncing his Teacher and God, the repentant cry started abiding in his heart and he started hiding, crying continually, looking for his God. He used to cry day and night in the depth of his emptied heart: God Jesus Chris, have mercy on me! God Jesus Chris, have mercy on me!… And when he heard about Him, he was the first to run in front of Him and ask forgiveness. He ran together with the other disciple whom Jesus loved. Peter and John. Repentance and love. Love ran faster, but repentance was the first to enter the tomb. Love without repentance is not love, but spiritual delusion and passion. There he cried: Where are You Jesus? Where are You Jesus, my God? But He was not there. He only found His napkin. It means that God asks for work, effort, assiduity, to search Him in order to find Him.

And nothingness again and again cry, but this time with the light of hope that He is here somewhere and that He will show Himself up from somewhere. And when Jesus comes how do you think Saint Peter felt? What happened inside his soul? Inside his heart?

He once again sees his God and Saviour. God gives him another opportunity for repentance. A new life, a new hope, a new love. He asks Him three times, according to the triple denial, “Do you love me?”, “Yes my Lord, you know that I love you.” was the answer. Once again God accepted Peter and Peter accepted God, and the never-ending, delightful grace from God settled into his heart and he wanted to be alone with his God, that even the disciple whom Chris loved bothered him. Only then did God allow him to follow Him and sends him to a mission.

What do these events mean, if not that all of us deny Christ because of our sins doing it every day. The sin is abandoning Christ, God. But God is merciful, God is love and He gives us a way of repenting and correcting our sinful life, since we cannot do anything without God and His grace.

All of us need God. All of us want to find God and to be with Him. And God chose our heart to be His place of abidance, so that we can look for Him in there. He is there, hiding somewhere, waiting for us to find Him, hidden inside us by a lot of passions in it (in the heart). And we should, continually and with cry, search Him and call His name. And when you find Him, you only want to be with Him, to fall in front of His most-sinless feet, to hug Him and to have Him. That is why Saint Peter said: “And why this man?”.

Lord, Jesus Chris, after the prayers of Saint Apostle Peter, have merci on us and allow us to have You in our hearts.