3rd Sunday in Easter

Recently one of the top players in the ATP Men’s Tour, Carlos Alcaraz was interviewed on his hopes and dreams for the future. At the tender age of 19, he achieved the huge feat of becoming the youngest ever number one in the world after winning the US open. Two years later, at only 21 years of age, he now has 4 Grand Slams under his belt, and many tennis pundits have said that he has the potential to become one of the all-time greats. They have been unable to resist the temptation to compare him to his idol, Rafael Nadal, who won a staggering 22 grand slams during his illustrious career, only 2 grand slams behind Novak Djokovic’s all-time record of 24 grand slams. But Alcaraz has reacted to these comparisons and the pressure that they put him under. He has said that he does not want to be known as the next Rafael Nadal. In the final few moments of his interview, Alcaraz wonders whether he has the mindset to become “the greatest ever tennis player in history.” His answer to this musing reveals that he is in fact a very different person from the likes of Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic: “Well, right now, I don’t know, I’m still young, I have a lot ahead of me, but from what I’ve lived so far, I definitely prefer to put happiness before any kind of accomplishment. Being happy is an accomplishment and happiness isn’t always easy to find.” It is clear that Carlos Alcaraz will not sacrifice his happiness and fulfilment in life in order to have his name immortalized in tennis history by winning the most number of grand slams ever. Some of his fans might certainly be disappointed at this attitude of his – but I think it gives us an important lesson, one that is contained in our gospel today.

Often in life we are faced with a choice that simplistically put pits our happiness against our success. All too often, I think that we end up chasing success because we are not sufficiently happy. It is often the case that the high-achievers of our society are deeply unhappy people, driven by their huge egos to achieve at all costs, often at the cost of many of their closest relationships. There is a sense in which happiness and fulfilment can slake the thirst inside of us for success, as this joke reveals: A business man sees a fisherman lying on the shore, looking up at the sky and enjoying the beauty of nature, and accosts him with the question: “Hi, why aren’t you fishing?” “Well, I caught the fishes we plan on eating” replied the fisherman “But if you caught more, you could sell them.” “And then what?” “Then you could buy a motor for the boat to catch even more fish” “And then what?” “Then you can sell more fish, get more boats, and employ other people to do the fishing for you” “And then what?” “Well then you won’t have to work and you can just relax and enjoy life!” “And what do you think I’m doing right now?

The flip side of this joke is that if we are not happy and fulfilled, we will probably find ourselves tempted to compensate for this lack by chasing after success. Thomas Merton, one of the greatest spiritual writers of last century, has this to say about success: “if I had a message to my contemporaries it is surely this: Be anything you like… but at all costs avoid one thing: success… If you are too obsessed with success, you will forget to live. If you have learned only how to be a success, your life has probably been wasted.” I think that this is a lesson that perhaps Carlos Alcaraz has learnt, he has learnt to be wary of success, and learnt that success, instead of bringing happiness, can actually lead to a loss of happiness, if it is pursued at all costs. This is a lesson that Peter had to learn in today’s gospel.

Peter is the quintessential man of action, the man who cannot sit still, the man who believes in himself and his own capabilities. When Jesus calls Peter, he asked him to give up this whole way of life. What would have been hardest for Peter to give up would have been the success that he knew as a fisherman. We like to think of Peter as an uneducated fisherman, but actually fishermen would have had significant status in ancient Palestine. Peter would have derived a significant amount of his self-worth from being able to support himself and his family through his trade, which was by no means an easy trade, one full of risks and challenges. But Jesus was able to wean him of this sense of achievement and success that came with fishing and make him into a disciple. As he is mentored by Jesus, Peter must learn the importance of relationships in his life, and he must learn the importance of love. Jesus invites him into a new way of being, where his self-worth does not come from his achievements: “for what does it profit a man to win the whole world, and yet forfeit his soul? (Mk 8:36). But old habits die hard, and Peter finds a way to still be competitive and find his value, not by being a great fisherman, but by being the best disciple. This is clear when Peter rashly promises Jesus at the last supper that “even if all these all these others fall away, I will never abandon you” (Jn 13: 37-38). We know how far short Peter fell of his promise.

Peter ends up being a massive failure of a disciple, and not only abandons Jesus in his hour of need, but denies that he even knows him three times. In this low moment, he decides to go back to his old way of life. His self-esteem is probably at its lowest ebb ever, and he needs a pick-me up – so he decides to go fishing. At least here he will be able to find a sense of self-worth. But even at fishing he now finds that he is a failure, having spent the whole night out and caught nothing. At the break of dawn, Jesus comes along and gives him the success he has been craving, and then some. Jesus gives Peter a catch that he could have barely dreamt of. As soon as the disciple Jesus loved points out to Peter that it is the Lord who has made this catch possible, Peter forgets about his great success and jumps into the water to run ashore to meet Jesus. Jesus’ presence on the shore instantly relativizes Peter’s hankering after success. Peter went looking for success precisely because he felt he had failed Jesus and Jesus had dropped out of his life. As soon as Jesus is back in the picture, success means nothing to Peter, and he is happy to leave the catch of his life behind, unconcerned that his absence in the boat might put in jeopardy the ability of the other fishermen to bring this catch to shore.

Once ashore, Jesus must now refocus Peter’s attention on the things that truly matter. Jesus must once again turn Peter’s focus onto the single most important relationship in his life. “Peter, do you love me?” It is a simple question, but one we would all do well to hear from Jesus every now and then. It is a question that should get us to reformulate our priorities in life. As Mother Teresa often said, God does not call us to be successful but to be faithful. Jesus is bringing Peter back to this central truth, his lodestar, which Peter had momentarily lost sight of amidst his personal failure as a disciple. Jesus is offering Peter a chance to re-affirm his fidelity by professing his love for his Lord and Master.

A final remark is in order regarding the success vs. happiness dichotomy that I began this homily with. As Christians, I think that Mother Teresa’s quote invites us to recast this dichotomy as one of success vs. faithfulness. As Jesus points out to Peter, being faithful to his calling as a disciple will sometimes mean that he will have to go places where he would rather not go. As a Gen-Zer, we should not be surprised that Carlos Alcaraz should choose to frame his life goals in terms of a juxtaposition between success and happiness. Our modern generation, and in particular Gen Z and now Gen Alpha have been seduced by the illusion that our lives should be all about our own happiness. As Christians, we need to be able to resist this seductive messaging of our ambient culture and frame the goal of our lives as one of being faithful to the call that God addresses to us. We need to realize that happiness comes as a by-product of being faithful to our Christian calling. Happiness, if pursued for its own sake, becomes just as an elusive goal as success.

Questions for reflection

1. Where in my life do I see the choice between happiness and success playing out?
2. Where might God be calling me to pay more attention to my personal relationships rather than my commitments to work?
3. What impact would a shift in focus from happiness to faithfulness have on the way that I frame the goals of my life?