I have a question for anyone who knows anything about chickens. How long does a rooster live? I have new neighbors who raise chickens as a hobby. They have a rooster, and I want to put him in a roaster. He starts up first thing in the morning and goes on all day long. His hens must really be something because this guy is a crowing maniac. I walk regularly for over a mile one way and can still hear his ear-piercing cackle at the other end. How can he keep that up? Don’t chickens ever get laryngitis?

But now I have newfound sympathy for St. Peter. How awful to have the guilt of your worst sin forever associated with the sharp, penetrating crowing of a rooster! Four gospels (Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, John 18) tell us that Peter denied knowing Jesus three times as he heard a rooster crow at least twice. I doubt the rooster stopped there. What went through Peter’s conscience every time he heard a rooster crow?   

I’ve spent time with people who were nearing the end of their lives and wanted to talk. They had haunting guilt. It was Satan’s last attempt to get them to deny Jesus. They needed to confess their worst sins one last time and be reassured that those sins were forgiven. I pray when I get to that point, Jesus will come quickly and remind me that my roosters have nothing to crow about.