Catholic homily for Friday within the Octave of Easter
Theme: JESUS REVEALED HIMSELF….. “This was now the third time Jesus was revealed to his disciples after being raised from the dead”
By: Fr. Joaquim MONRÓS i Guitart
Homily for Friday April 9 2021
Today, for the third time, Jesus reveals himself to his disciples after his rising. Peter has gone back to his old fisherman job and the others have decided to join him. It stands to logic that, if he was a fisherman before following Jesus, afterwards, he gets back to his old job; and there still are those who are surprised to see that it is not necessary to leave one’s honest work to follow Christ.
That night they caught nothing! And when the day breaks and Jesus appears, they do not recognize him until He asks them for something to eat. When they tell him they have nothing, He just points out where they are to throw their net. And, even though fishermen seem to know all the answers and they had spent the night to no avail, they obey him. “The power of obedience! The lake of Tiberias had denied its fishes to Peter’s nets. A whole night in vain. — Then, obedient, he lowered his net again to the water and they caught ‘a huge number of fish’. — Believe me: the miracle is repeated each day” (Saint Josemaria).
The Evangelist points out “the net ashore full of one hundred fifty-three large fish” (Jn 21:11) but, in spite of being so many, the net was not torn. These are details to bear in mind, as Redemption, amid normal work, takes place with responsible obedience.
They “realized it was the Lord. Jesus came over and took the bread and gave it to them” (Jn 21:12-13). He did the same with the fish. If we obey him we shall not lack either the spiritual or the material food. He taught this to his closest followers and Saint John Paul II said it too: “At the beginning of the new millennium, our hearts ring out with the words of Jesus when one day (…) he invited the Apostle to “put out into the deep” for a catch: “Duc in altum” (Lk 5:4). Peter and his first companions trusted Christ’s words, and they caught a great number of fish” (Lk 5:6). Duc in altum! These words ring out for us today”.
With our obedience —like Our Lady Mary’s obedience— we ask the Lord to go on giving his Church his apostolic fruits.
Fr. Joaquim MONRÓS i Guitart
(Tarragona, Spain)