Resurrection Bookends
about Jesus’ power and love

“Children, have you caught anything?” With these words our Lord Jesus Christ would bookend one of two memorable events from His earthly ministry after His Resurrection as recorded in John’s Gospel Chapter 21.

The first of these involved the Apostles hauling in a miraculously large number of fish after a night in which they had caught nothing. This echoed a similar supernatural jaw-dropping catch early on in Jesus’ Earthly ministry as recorded in Luke’s Gospel (5:4).

The second event our Lord would bookend covers Peter's three-time reaffirmation of his love for Jesus following his earlier three-time denial of Jesus during our Lord’s Passion.

All throughout the Gospels, even after His death and Resurrection, Jesus showed his apostles and disciples how, as He Himself had said at one point earlier in His earthly ministry that “with God all things are possible” (Mt 19:26).

We read this message from the Archangel Gabriel as well when He tells the Blessed Virgin Mary that she is to be the mother of Jesus, even in her celibate state, because "nothing shall be impossible for God" (Lk 1:37).

Indeed, our Lord had given his Apostles Peter James and John, a tantalizing taste of His supernatural abilities as the Son of God when, after their futile attempt at fishing, upon our Lord’s prompting to go out into the deep source they hauled in an enormous catch of fish (Lk 5:4-9)!

You may recall that prompted Peter to acknowledge his sinfulness to our Lord, that’s how impressed he was with Jesus’ holiness. Christ famously responded pointing to the Apostle's future vocation: “Do not be afraid. From now on, you will be catching men.” (Lk 5:10)

Moving forward on time just a few years later, the author of the Life of Christ, Guiseppe Ricciotti, points out in his book that after the Passover festivities had ended and the Paschal mystery had completely unfolded, the Apostles, following the risen Jesus’ command, went to Galilee where they could wait for our Lord there at a safe distance from the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem.

As he points out, Jesus had told them to go to Galilee but had not said when they would see Him again and so there was nothing for them to do but wait for Him In the meantime.

And so the scene was set for what St. John tells us in His Gospel would be the third time Jesus would appear to a group of his disciples (Jn 21:14) “some days later” according to Ricciotti.

One day Peter announced that he was going fishing, and 6 of his fellow Apostles including Thomas, Nathanael (also known as Bartholomew) along with James and John decided to go with him to the Sea of Tiberias for a catch.

Riccotti points out that considering that they were fishermen, they felt it best to resume their old means of making a living while they awaited the next return of Jesus after His Resurrection.

It's been said there are times that God can surprise us when we least expect him to do so. And this certainly was the case in the following instance!

That night, when the Apostles went fishing, they caught nothing. But by daybreak they saw someone on the shore who directed them to cast their net on the right side of their boat.

Suddenly they had an enormous catch of 153 large fish in their net. Peter and John both recognized this gentleman, who also had a charcoal fire going with fish on it and bread yet, as our Lord!

We read about Jesus’ other bookend mentioned earlier soon after this awesome encounter. Just as Peter had denied our Lord three times after a maid and some bystanders pointed to him as having been one of Jesus’ followers, our Lord Himself elicited an affirmation of Peter’s love for Him three times that morning while on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias.

He also charged Peter with the loving task to tend and feed His flock (which would have included you and me had we been alive then)! 

In these narratives we see God’s awesome power and His desire for our trust and loving obedience. Think of those times in your own life when God has said to you, in effect as He did to His apostles at the Last Supper, “if you love me, you’ll keep my commandments” (Jn 14:15).

He may not be entrusting you to feed and care for His flock as He did St. Peter when He made Him the rock upon which He would build His church (Mt 16:18) and our first pope.

But think of those “lambs” all around you, people just like yourself in need of love, support, and care. Christ is asking all of us, each one of us in our own unique way to show them His love working through you in whatever vocation you may have.

St. Therese of Lisieux gave us all the great insight, in her famous “Little way” that any deeds we do with love for God can have great merit, regardless of the size and scope of their impact.

Think of our Blessed Mother’s wonderful prayer the Magnificat in which she rejoiced in being able to magnify the Lord in her “lowliness” for inspiration along these lines (Lk 1:46-55).

The great Christian author C.S. Lewis wrote in this regard in his great book Mere Christianity, when people speak of being “in Christ' or of Christ being “in them” “they mean that Christ is actually operating through them; that the whole mass of Christians are the physical organism through which Christ acts-that we are His fingers and muscles, the cells of His body. And perhaps that explains one or two things. It explains why this new life is spread not only by purely mental acts like belief, but by bodily acts like baptism and Holy Communion”

And speaking of Communion, along these lines, what better example of His amazing love for us is that Christ, the second person of the Trinity through whom all things were made (Jn 1:3), makes Himself available to each one of us in the small white hosts that become His body, blood, soul and divinity in the Eucharist in Masses throughout the world, countless times each day! 

Just imagine how awesome His Real Presence in the Eucharist is! He seeks there to give us His graces and spiritual nourishment to strengthen our desire, even when it’s feeble at times, to make His will for us our will for ourselves. To love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves as God would have us do.

Granted there are so many times when He asks us to carry our crosses as he did on the Via Dolorosa as expiation for our own sins and those of others including people we might not even know. He may wish to give us His peace but that doesn’t necessarily come with a Rose Garden.

Rather it might be more like that of Gethsemane, where Jesus literally sweat blood over all the collective sins of mankind including ours. As St. John relates in his Gospel, Jesus knew how fickle we could be about choosing to follow Him in our hearts, not just in our words (Jn 2:24).

Following our Lord and acting on the graces He wishes to give us in the sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance (Communions and Confession) can give us real peace of mind; and if nothing else Jesus can provide us with much needed support for us in prayer when our crosses seem so heavy they might crush us with anxieties and physical or emotional pain.

The Gospel accounts of the large catches of fish here can resonate with all of us struggling as we all do at one time or another with lukewarmness or tepidity in our prayer lives and in our devotion to discerning and doing God’s will for us in general.

There are times we’ve all cried out to God in prayer and have gotten no relief from our troubles, as if He’s not listening or responding in some way. Or, say, you just feel dryness in your spiritual life.

It’s as if you’ve gone fishing, casting your own net out to sea spiritually, and have caught nothing, perhaps night after night, (metaphorically speaking, that is). Nothing seems to be going your way. Nothing seems to be going right!

But a key part of our faith is persevering in prayer to fortify your trust in God to see you through just such times! It has been said that, while we want our prayers answered with the speed of a microwave, God many times more likely will answer them in more of a slow cooker style.

Think in this regard of Mary's parents Anna and Joachim who prayed for a child for years before they were blessed with our Blessed Mother, much like Hannah praying “year by year” (1 Sm 1:7) before God answered her prayer with a son, the prophet Samuel.

And who could forget St. Augustine's mother St. Monica’s successful perseverance in prayer for her son’s conversion to Catholicism at the Easter Vigil of the year 387. St. Augustine, as we all know, went on to become one of the towering figures of our faith, and is known as the “Doctor of Grace”.

But if you're faithful to our Lord you will indeed see a loving God beckon you to have breakfast on the shore after one of those perhaps many nights when you’ve caught nothing, figuratively speaking, even if it takes a lifetime!

May God give you the confidence to realize that if you persevere in faith, prayer, trust, and loving obedience in doing His Will, there will indeed be that charcoal fire, that tremendous catch of fish, whatever that may be in your life, and that God will take care of you one way or another, on your journey towards Eternal Life and happiness forever with Him in heaven, in any case!

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