This is the Third Sunday of Easter, and the Risen Lord feeds His disciples on the shore of the lake.
Let us ponder how we can be attuned to His presence, and how we can also allow ourselves to be fed by Him.
In the Easter season, we read in the Scriptures how Our Lord appeared to His apostles and disciples. In the Gospel that we have just heard, Our Lord Jesus appears to the disciples, as they finish an unsuccessful night of fishing. As the Catechism says, “the risen Jesus enjoys the sovereign freedom of appearing as he wishes: in the guise of a gardener or in other forms familiar to his disciples, precisely to awaken their faith” (CCC 645). In other words, Our Lord comes and goes as He wishes, but when He comes, His aim is to awaken faith. In many ways this is also true for our own spiritual lives. We too are in the Easter season. Like the apostles and disciples, we are not able to hang on to Our Lord’s presence continually, without interruption. Sometimes we can clearly see Him, sometimes not. However, the glimpses that we get of Him are meant to help us grow in our trust, our faith, in Him.
Jesus’ appearances are choreographed perfectly for the needs of the individual believer. Look at Peter: after Jesus’ Passion, Peter needed to ask forgiveness, and to atone, for the fact that three times, he denied his Lord and Master. Peter was so eager to do this, that he even jumped into the lake, and swam on ahead of the boat, to get to the shore first, and perhaps catch a moment alone with Christ. Our Lord arranges things perfectly: Peter denied Jesus in front of a fire – so our Lord makes a fire on the shore of the lake (Didache Bible, Jeffrey Cole, ed., 2021, pg. 1455). In front of this fire, Peter has the chance to say three times, “Lord, I love you”. Similarly, when He makes His presence clear to us, Our Lord gives us each time exactly what we need at that moment.
There is, in all of this, something that is required of us, something that Jesus Christ asks of us. He asks us to come hungry. A fancy restaurant in Toronto had a series of radio commercials that said, “Come hungry darling”. We too are called to come hungry for worship, for Holy Mass. Not only in the very real sense of fasting at least one hour before Holy Communion, as the Church asks us to do. An hour before taking Holy Communion, we need to abstain from food or drink, although one is able to have some water. We are to come hungry also in other senses: spiritually, emotionally, maybe even physically. We are to come for worship, for Holy Mass, with the expectation that the Lord wants to feed us. We are to cultivate this holy hunger, this holy longing, this desire, for Christ and His word. We are to resist the temptation to fill ourselves with junkfood, with those things that fill, but do not satisfy, such as distractions, possessions, entertainment, the things of this world. Instead, we are to come hungry for worship, and feast on the simple but nutritious fare that the Lord provides. At the end of their encounter with Christ on the shores of the lake, the disciples came away satisfied, not only with physical food, but with spiritual nourishment. We too are to allow ourselves to be fed, by our Risen Lord, the Christ.
Let us end with a prayer to Our Lady: Mother Mary, Mother of God. Today we begin your month, the month of May. Allow us to cultivate in ourselves the holy hunger for the things of God. Help us to avoid those things that fill, but do not satisfy. Accompany us in the days of Easter, so that we can catch glimpses of your Son, the Risen Lord, so that we may not grow weary or disheartened.
(Fr. Pawel Ratajczak, OMI, May 1, 2022)