Thursday in the Second Week of Easter, April 15, 2021

John 3:31-36

The one who comes from above is above all. The one who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of earthly things. But the one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. Whoever does accept his testimony certifies that God is trustworthy. For the one whom God sent speaks the words of God. He does not ration his gift of the Spirit. The Father loves the Son and has given everything over to him. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him.

The Lord Jesus continues speaking to Nicodemus and this gives us the Gospel reading for today’s Mass.  The Lord has been speaking of the Holy Spirit, whom no one can see directly, but who can be seen in the acts of faith performed by those who believe.  The Lord has also spoken of the chasm that exists between the heavenly and the earthly, and he continues on this theme here.

“The one who comes from above is above all.”  This might be translated better as, The one who comes from above is superior to all.  We Christians can understand this as the Son of God who comes into the world transcends all things.  The Son is not simply a greater thing; he is a substantially different thing, and in this way he is “superior” to all others.  He is divine: without beginning, without end, “the Alpha and the Omega”.  As he himself says, “I am Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End” (Revelation 22, 13).   Compared with the eternal Fire of God, humans are not even the sparks of the fire: those are the angels.  We are the bits of ash on the hearth floor.

“The one who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of earthly things. But the one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard.”  This is a phrase that sounds like it was first uttered in Hebrew, and, indeed, the Lord often argued with the Pharisees in Hebrew, not in Greek or Aramaic.  Thus, from the Hebrew we might translate this as, The adam is of the adamah and speaks of the things of adamah.  Adam, the man, and adamah, the earth. The human knows only earthly things because it is all he can know.  The one from heaven transcends the one from earth and so testifies to what the one from earth cannot imagine.  “But no one accepts his testimony.”  That is, unaided, no one of the earth has the ability to understand and to accept his testimony.  And yet, there are those who do, not through corroborating knowledge of what the one from heaven says, but through faith in the words of the one from heaven.  We may not be able to comprehend heaven, the angels, and grace, much less the mystery of the Holy Trinity, but we can believe in the one who tells us of these things, and we do this through the aid of the grace he gives us.  In accepting the word of the Messenger, we believe in the One who sent him, and that he is trustworthy.  “For the one whom God sent speaks the words of God.”  We believe what the Messenger says of himself because of the works he performs by the power of the one who sent him.  “He does not ration his gift of the Spirit.”  The grace which enables us to believe is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and to the human who wants to believe and is prepared to believe, abundant grace will be given.  We recall how the Lord Jesus fed the five thousand, so that there was enough food left over to feed a town.  God is not sparing with his gifts; it is we who are sparing in our reception of them.  

“The Father loves the Son and has given everything over to him.”  These words sound so prosaic in our human ears.  The heavenly reality they hint at cannot enter our minds.  If it is true, as St. Paul said, that “eye has not seen, nor ear heard: neither has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for them that love him” (1 Corinthians 2, 9), then how much less we can conceive of the love of the Father for his Son.  The Father, in his love, gives everything to the Son — “Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving, honor and power and strength” unto eternity (Revelation 7, 12).  The Son will share these with those who believe in him: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.”  This belief is not merely acceptance of a body of knowledge but signifies a relationship.  We do not simply believe the Son, but believe in the Son.  We give ourselves to him, body, soul, and mind.  “Whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him.”  The wrath of God “remained” upon us all through original sin, which is only taken away by baptism, the remission of sin won for us by the Blood of the Lord which was poured out for us.  That is, we recognize God’s choice of us to be his friends, though we have sinned against him both in our First Parents and personally, and we become his sons and daughters through the cleansing water of baptism, which confers a new birth upon us.  

In considering the ways in which God transcends us, we marvel at how we become his sons and daughter by adoption, and heirs of heaven.  All this occurs by the Life, Death, and Resurrection of his Son.

 Wednesday in the Second Week of Easter, April 14, 2021

John 3:16-21

God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God. And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.

These words come at the end of the Lord’s conversation with Nicodemus, but because the Greek text does not feature punctuation, which was only developing at that time, it is not easy to tell whether these words are those of the Lord or John’s own commentary on what the Lord has just said.  Most scholars agree that these are John’s words.

“God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”  While this verse is familiar and appears very simple, its implications are enormous.  First, we see that God loves the “world”, which contrasts with how Jesus often uses “world”, which is as that which is opposed to heaven.  This tells us that the world’s failings and even wickedness cannot prevent God from loving it: our own wickedness cannot keep the Lord from loving us, though it will keep us from experiencing his love and receiving his mercy.  However, not only does God love the world, but he “so loved” the world that “he gave his only-begotten Son”.  The Greek word translated here as “he gave” has many meanings, including “to offer”, “to command”, “to pour”, and, significantly, “to utter” — since from all eternity the Father spoke the Word.  “Gave up” actually works better here than simply “he gave”, since the Father’s will was that his Son “empt[y] himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man” (Philippians 2, 7).  This tells us what kind of love the Father had for the world: it was not merely the regard of a Creator for his creation, or a love that would be repaid in kind, but a thoroughly gratuitous love which benefitted the lover in no way but benefitted the receiver in every way.  The verse reveals God as One who is much more even than all-powerful, all-knowing, and omnipresent: he is our Lover, and his love is infinite.  

“So that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”  This part of the verse reveals the prime benefit of his love for us: that all who believe in his Son might have eternal life.  This means to take firmly into hearts what the Son teaches us, to obey his commandments, and to persevere in our faith in him. By doing this, we open ourselves up to his mercy, which leads to eternal life.  By refusing to do this, we close ourselves off from the life he so much wants to give us and turns us towards the darkness of eternal death.  We see this eagerness to give us life in the next verse: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”  Despite sins worse than those that brought on the great Flood, Almighty God continues to love us.  And yet, as John reflects, “The Light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to Light, because their works were evil.”  Despite all the signs of God’s love, manifested in the beauty and order of the natural world as well as in the words of his Prophets and the Life, Death, and Resurrection of his Son for our sake, there are many who reject him, preferring the darkness of their self-absorption to the light of love.  The irrationality of such a choice seems baffling, and would be hard to believe if it were not for the examples we see of it in the Scriptures, as in the very determined hatred of Judas and Caiphas, who were given multiple opportunities to turn away from their homicidal hatred of Jesus, and refused.

“But whoever lives the truth comes to the Light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.”  The saints are those who “live the truth” revealed by the Lord Jesus, that is, the truth of the surpassing love of God, and who respond with joy to it.  This response shows itself in devotion to prayer, to penance, to alms-giving, and to giving themselves to God as they have seen God giving up his Son for them.  

 Tuesday in the Second Week of Easter, April 13, 2021

John 3:7b-15

Jesus said to Nicodemus: “‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus answered and said to him, ‘How can this happen?” Jesus answered and said to him, “You are the teacher of Israel and you do not understand this? Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony. If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”

We know very little about Nicodemus apart from what we find in St. John’s Gospel.  He was a Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council, which makes him at least middle-aged at the time he speaks to Jesus.  He was given a Greek name, a not uncommon practice among the Jews of that time.  From his conversation with the Lord we learn that he was eager to learn but careful in evaluating what he heard, and from working with Joseph of Arimathea we know him to be loyal to the truth once he accepted it.  His feast day — for he is considered a saint — is on August 31, although for centuries it was celebrated in the West on August 3.

St. John quotes the Lord Jesus as saying to Nicodemus, “If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?”  John was fascinated by the way the Lord used ordinary “earthly” things to teach about heavenly things, and we see John giving several examples of this throughout his Gospel.  In fact, in his prologue to the Gospel, John refers to the Son of God as “The Word”, himself using a familiar “earthly” idea to talk about the divine reality of who the Word is.  We think of a word as an expression conceived by the mind, formed on the tongue, and spoken, accompanied by a breath: the Father, who conceived the Son from all eternity, speaking the Word — “generating” or “begetting” him — and the accompanying breath, the Holy Spirit (from spiritus, “spirit” or “breath”).  The Lord himself uses the wine at the wedding of Cana to teach about grace; the Temple in Jerusalem, to teach about his Body; the bread with which he fed the five thousand, to talk about the need all have to eat his Flesh; and the water in the Samaritan well, to teach about the water of baptism.  More examples could be given.  I would suggest that he also was teaching when he called his Mother, and also Mary Magdalene, “woman”. This was not a common way of addressing a woman, so when Jesus does this, it sticks out in our minds.  We ought to think of where the word comes from, and we should think back to the early pages of Genesis, where it says that “Adam said: This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman’, because she was taken out of ‘man’ ” (Genesis 2, 23).  Perhaps Jesus, by addressing these women as “woman” was identifying himself as Adam, or, rather, the New Adam, as St. Paul would do (cf. Romans 5, 12-21).  And, in the case of the Virgin Mary, identifying her as the New Eve, as St. Irenaeus taught in the second century.

All around us figures of the divine cloak themselves in ordinary, earthly things: the sunrise, the wind, clouds that sometimes hide the sun, the sand of a beach, a mountain, a river, the rain, sleep and waking, birth and death.  This is not accidental but something we should expect from God, who leaves his tracks even for the godless to follow so as to find him.  By looking for the deeper meaning of earthly things we can begin to think with a spiritual mind which will allow us to grow in our faith and to see God here even before we see him in heaven.

Monday in the Second Week of Easter, April 12, 2021

John 3:1-8

There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. He came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you are doing unless God is with him.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless one is born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man once grown old be born again? Surely he cannot reenter his mother’s womb and be born again, can he?” Jesus answered, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless one is born of water and Spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I told you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

St. John notes that Nicodemus came to Jesus at night.  In modern times, people often meet professionally or socially after dark, but in the ancient world and until the Industrial Age, this did not happen.  He would have stolen through the empty, unlit streets of Jerusalem for the house where it was said Jesus was staying, like a conspirator or a thief going to meet a comrade.  He would not have made his plans known to anyone lest he be thought of by his peers as “that man’s follower”.  Still, Nicodemus had watched Jesus and listened carefully to his words.  He was puzzled and troubled, and where others let their uneasiness keep them from the Nazarene, Nicodemus had the integrity to go and talk to him away from the crowds and to learn for himself if this was the Messiah.

“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you are doing unless God is with him.”  Nicodemus sums up in one line the argument Jesus was to make over and over to the Pharisees and Sanhedrin.  We can contrast the clear thinking of Nicodemus with the twisted, contorted denials of his brethren who would rather make the patently absurd claim that Jesus cast out demons by the power of the chief of the demons than entertain the merest possibility that he might be doing the work of God.  

“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless one is born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”  John quotes parts of the ensuing conversation, and not all of it, and so it sounds rather abrupt and cryptic.  But these are the words the Lord spoke to Nicodemus.  They may seem obvious to us, but they speak of a profound mystery.  Unless one is “born from above”, a phrase Nicodemus would have have heard before, a person cannot “see” the Kingdom of God.  The Lord is speaking of grace.  But how do we believe in the Kingdom of heaven before we receive grace?  The soul is drawn to God even while still walking in the darkness before grace and willingly goes to him to learn who he is.  At that time, the person is able to learn much about God, yet much remains in darkness.  It is possible by the moonlight to see outlines and this is enough to go on for a while.  But then curiosity gives way to desire and this in turn gives way to love, and then grace comes as the rising of the sun.  In the full light of grace we “see” with the eyes of faith — we believe.

“How can a man once grown old be born again?”  Nicodemus knows that the Lord is using ordinary words to speak of extraordinary things, but he needs the Lord to teach him the vocabulary of the Kingdom of which he speaks.  “What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit.”  Jesus teaches Nicodemus that he is speaking of spiritual realities.  To a man well-educated in the very physical Law of Moses, this is an entirely new way of thinking.  The idea of spiritual rebirth was prefigured in the Old Law through the sacrifice of the scapegoat and in the purification laws, but here it stands out, in its fullness, in the clarity of the daylight.  In an instant, the darkness becomes light, and we can see clearly what we could not even guess at before.  “The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”  We cannot see the wind, but we can see its effects in the trees or on the dust that normally lays quietly on the street.  We cannot read people’s minds, but when we see a businessman hurrying to a merchant’s stall we can surmise that he is interested in a transaction.  Likewise, we cannot see the Holy Spirit, but when we see a person performing a gratuitous act of kindness for another, or we see a young woman giving up her life to God as a religious, we know that he is the prime Actor.

In the night of this life we stumble about for our Lord, urged on by our love for him, progressing towards him even now with the help of the Holy Spirit.   Finally, the darkness will be stripped away and we will stand in the bright glory of the Lord’s presence, seeing him as he is.  “We know that when he shall appear we shall be like to him: because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3, 2).

 

 The Second Sunday of Easter, April 11, 2021

John 20:19–31

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”  Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”  Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”  Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.

“On the evening of that first day of the week.”  According to St. John, the Lord had appeared to Mary Magdalene in the morning of the first day of the week.  Two of the Apostles had looked for him in the tomb but only saw his carefully wrapped and rolled burial cloths there.  They did not see the Lord until that evening, which would have marked the beginning of the next day.  We might wonder that the Lord made his Apostles wait all those hours.  It must have been agony for them.  On the one hand, they were hiding in the house for fear that the leaders of the Jews would come for them next, and on the other, they had the report of Mary Magdalene that he was alive and that she had touched him, and the report of John and Peter that the tomb was strangely empty.  But if the Apostles had possessed greater faith, they would have stayed at the tomb, keeping vigil for a Resurrection the Lord had promised them more than once, and they would have seen the stone roll back from it and the Lord emerge.  Their faith and hope would have been rewarded with certainty, and they would have shared at once in the Lord’s victory.  Locking themselves in the house, turning over in their minds what they feared and the Lord’s message to them through Mary Magdalene: “I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God” (John 20, 17), they truly suffered his loss.

The long hours ticked by.  They spent the time praying and reflecting.  They had not gone to the Cross, they had not waited at the tomb.  Now they hid in a house that did not belong to them.  They did not see him because they had not remained close to him.  They had not persevered in their faith but had let their fears overcome them.  Self-preservation, a very natural motivation, had taken over, but at the risk of losing the Lord.  His words must have sounded clearly in their memories: “For he that will save his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for my sake, shall find it. 

For what does it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul?” (Matthew 16, 25-26).  So they had perhaps gained a few more hours or days or years of life, but had jeopardized their eternal salvation.

And then, as the sun went down and the earth darkened and lamps needed to be lit and their yearning for their Lord could hardly be borne any longer, “Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ ”  John tells us that “the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.”  He came to them with the blessing of peace, and while he would later scold them for the smallness of their faith, as he had done before, he had come back to them, and was involving them in his enduring mission to the people of the world: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  After all that had happened, he still regarded them as his Apostles, and they rejoiced both in his Resurrection and in his love for them.  Thomas had gone from them but would return.  He would wait in uncertainty a further week when the Lord relieved his doubts and gave him cause for exclaiming, “My Lord and my God!”

We are near our Lord through our faith, and experience his nearness to us through prayer especially before the Blessed Sacrament, the reading of the Gospels, meditation on his Life, Death, and Resurrection, and through the good works we do for his sake.  If we stay near to him, we shall surely see him when he comes.

 Saturday within the octave of Easter, April 9, 2021

Mark 16:9–15

When Jesus had risen, early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told his companions who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe. 

After this he appeared in another form to two of them walking along on their way to the country. They returned and told the others; but they did not believe them either. But later, as the Eleven were at table, Jesus appeared to them and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had been raised. He said to them, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”

The verses used for the Gospel reading for today’s Mass were probably not written by St. Mark because they mainly repeat what he has already said just before, and these feature a different style than the one Mark uses.  Also, these verses are not found in all the ancient manuscripts.  They are referred to collectively as “the long ending”, to distinguish this ending from the incomplete ending we do find in all the manuscripts for this Gospel.  There is also a “short ending” which consists of a verse or less.  Despite the lack of Mark’s authorship, the Church has always recognized the antiquity of these verses and that they result from divine inspiration, and so they are considered an authentic part of this Gospel.  Mark does seem to end his Gospel in an awkward way.  The last words he wrote were, “And they said nothing to any man: for they were afraid” (Mark 16, 8).  This refers to the women who went to the tomb of Jesus.  We know from the aorist tense of the verb “they said” and from the testimony of the other Gospels that they did not speak to anyone until they arrived at the house used by the Apostles.  Yet, while the other Evangelists give us accounts of appearances of the risen Jesus, Mark does not.  The “long ending” was written as a way of providing a more rounded conclusion to the Gospel.  And it does this without adding anything we would not know from the other Gospels.

We see in this “long ending” the persistence of unbelief in the Lord’s Resurrection among his closest followers.  This comes from the rock-solid human understanding that in order for a person to come into this world, he or she must be conceived and born, and that all those born into the world must die, and that the dead do not return (except perhaps for brief visitations as ghosts).  This understanding might be said to be part of human hardwiring.  And so, when Mary Magdalene tells the other women and later the Apostles, that Jesus is alive, they will not believe her.  It was inconceivable to them that her claim could be true.  This, however, leads us to conclude that the Lord Jesus did rise from the dead.  If the Gospels had been written in a way that did not mention the doubts and refusals — not to say, the inability — to believe, the Resurrection accounts would sound like the endings of fairy tales and could not be taken seriously.  But here we have an account of real men and women who could not or would not believe the unbelievable, and then they did.  This would be similar to believing that the sea had turned back on itself in mid course, or that mountains had leapt like rams (cf. Psalm 114, 3-4).  We would say today that the Resurrection could not have happened because it contradicts science.

Mary Magdalene and her companions and the Apostles and other disciples were not gullible peasants who believed everything they were told.  They were practical people of hard experience who wanted solid proof of extraordinary claims.  The Risen Lord himself met their demands for proof, eating ordinary food in their sight, allowing them to touch him, and even reasoning with them from the Scriptures that his rising must be true.  The greatest proof of the Lord’s triumph over death was his triumph over the doubts and convictions of those to whom he appeared.  It was not easy for them to believe, but once they did, they taught the truth at the cost of their lives and in the face of the doubt and ridicule of the world.  

The Lord Jesus paid with his life the price for our belief in him as God, and it cost the lives of those who knew him to pass on this Good News.  It costs something for us to believe as well, but how well do we believe?  Do we do our part in passing on this Good News as the Lord wants us to do?

 Friday within the Octave of Easter, April 9, 2021

John 21:1–14

Jesus revealed himself again to his disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. He revealed himself in this way. Together were Simon Peter, Thomas called Didymus, Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, Zebedee’s sons, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We also will come with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. When it was already dawn, Jesus was standing on the shore; but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, have you caught anything to eat?” They answered him, “No.” So he said to them, “Cast the net over the right side of the boat and you will find something.” So they cast it, and were not able to pull it in because of the number of fish. So the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord.” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he tucked in his garment, for he was lightly clad, and jumped into the sea. The other disciples came in the boat, for they were not far from shore, only about a hundred yards, dragging the net with the fish. When they climbed out on shore, they saw a charcoal fire with fish on it and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you just caught.” So Simon Peter went over and dragged the net ashore full of one hundred fifty-three large fish. Even though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come, have breakfast.” And none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they realized it was the Lord. Jesus came over and took the bread and gave it to them, and in like manner the fish. This was now the third time Jesus was revealed to his disciples after being raised from the dead.

The Evangelists record several of the Lord’s appearances to the Apostles and to his other followers over the course of the forty days following his rising from the dead.  These appearances followed no pattern and could seemingly occur at any time at all.  In the appearance recorded by St. John used as the Gospel reading for today’s Mass, we see seven of the Apostles fishing.  The Lord had directed his Apostles to return to Galilee, and rather than each man returning to his own town, as Nathanael might go back to Cana, they remained together, probably at the house of St. Peter in Capernaum.  Here, we see seven of the Apostles go fishing.  They do not do this for sport or to pass the time, but in order to make money for themselves, just as St. Paul would continue his occupation of making tents in order to fund himself after his conversion to Christ.  At the same time, the other Apostles going with Peter that night to the seaside, where he kept his boat, is a sign of their unity under him.

“That night they caught nothing.”  That these skilled, veteran fishermen caught nothing at all was as much a miracle as the later bountiful catch, which came at the most unlikely hour.  And yet, all through the night they cast their heavy net and dragged it a bit, and then pulled it out of the water, empty, time and time again.  “When it was already dawn, Jesus was standing on the shore; but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.”  The inability of the Apostles and the Lord’s other disciples to recognize him when he appeared to them seems to indicate the powerful grip of human experience that told them that when a person died, they would never see him again.  We have all experienced something of the kind.  Once we have made up our minds that something is impossible, we struggle greatly to accept it when it actually occurs.  We even become unreasonable in looking for ways in which the thing is a fraud or how our senses have been tricked.  In the case of the Apostles, we see how hard it was even for them to believe that Jesus was risen, and this after he had already appeared to them on previous occasions.  This in turn tells us how great is the gift of faith for us to believe in the Resurrection of the Lord.

“So they cast it, and were not able to pull it in because of the number of fish.”  All through the dark night of this life following the sin of our first parents, we strove to help ourselves, to solve our unsolvable problem, to save ourselves from death and hell.  But we could not, despite our best and most prolonged efforts.  It is the horror of the human predicament before the coming of Christ: our imminent destruction and our inability to save ourselves.  This is true historically and also personally, for the one who does not know Christ.  But with the arrival of Christ and in cooperation with the direction and grace he offers — or, our obedience to him — we are saved.  And not “merely” saved, but abundantly saved.  John is specific: one hundred and fifty-three large fish.  The profit from this catch would see them through for some time.  But the number, signifying the Lord’s abundance, also shows how their preaching the Gospel will be effective through the Lord’s grace.  There will indeed by dark times of hard labor, evidently fruitless, for them and those who carry on their work after them, but this is only to remind us that the work is not ours as though its success depended entirely upon our skills.  It is the work of the Lord, which he deigns to share with us.  

John’s statement that 153 large fish were caught intrigued the Church Fathers and later commentators, and this has resulted in various speculations, but no one has produced a very persuasive explanation for it, unless the number is simply the number of fish that were caught.  Perhaps John himself counted them, and the number intrigued him as well.