Blue Eyed Ennis: Friday Octave of Easter 2012 - Jesus Prepares Breakfast On The Beach

Friday Octave of Easter 2012 - Jesus Prepares Breakfast On The Beach

Scripture readings for today's Mass are here

The beautiful image below is one of my favourite images of Jesus on the shoreline looking out to sea and waiting for the disciples to return from their fishing trip.

It is by Kristin Serafini.

Jesus even has a a bunch of goodies he has prepared for a Resurrection breakfast!!

My comment this year is the same as last year....

Imagine Jesus cooking a meal for you on the beach !! How perfect is that ?...... to which I'll add a prayer that when I die and if I'm lucky not to be sent to hell, and if I get out of purgatory, please God, I really don't want to have to go there either ; IF...... by the grace of God I am allowed into heaven, then this is how I would like to meet Jesus.

There will be a meal of fish and bread, and maybe some chips too and fruit like it is in the picture, and afterwards a swim, and I won't have to worry about getting cramp after a meal and the danger of drowning afterwards, because it is heaven and there won't be cramp in heaven.

I can imagine all the restlessness, longings and inadequacies will no longer be there in that infinite sea of heaven- to be totally immersed in God along with all of creation.

While I am alive I can only get hints of divine and eternal realities.

All of creation is in a finite form and yet we all bear the image of God and have a means of getting in touch with the infinite love of God through the Eucharist and through God's creation and any number of ways that usually involve forgetting self !

Kristin Serafina's painting of Jesus on the shore reminds me that Jesus is waiting on me to bring home the fish.

Will I manage one hundred and fifty three or would Jesus be just as pleased if I gave Him only one !

The only time I ever went fishing was as a teenager from a boat off the shore of Rathmullan harbour in County Donegal, Ireland.

My father was born in Donegal and we used to spend many blissful summer holidays there.

Rathmullan, County Donegal and Lough Swilly Source

I caught a mackerel but was so horrified at being confronted with a live wriggling fish hauled out of it's natural environment, that I couldn't bring myself to knock it on the head, so I took it off the hook with the help of my uncle and let it back into the sea.

I still eat fish caught by other fishermen. There must be a deeper meaning in that somewhere. Maybe not.

Maybe I'm the fish that needs knocking on the head and that reminds me that is what resurrection means : - that I have to die before I get a new life and it involves getting hurt !

Author Margaret Silf, in her book of Grace Filled Days 2012 ( Loyola Press), has a lovely astute reflection on this part of the Gospel below:

"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."

She says :

"Sometimes the smallest adjustment in our point of view- moving from one side of the boat to the other - can make a huge difference in our vision.

And sometimes it takes an unexpected stranger on the shore to shift our
perspective."

How true !!

The video is from today's Gospel of John .

Some people prefer to read the script but it's nice to have a variety of choices

Gospel Jn 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.

All images below by James Tissot.

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.

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More from Seamus Heaney

“History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave,
But then, once in a lifetime,
The longest-for tidal wave of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea change
On the far side of revenge
Believe in miracles....”

“The aim of poetry and the poet is finally to be of service, to ply the effort of the individual into the larger work of the community as a whole.” ―

“I can't think of a case where poems changed the world, but what they do is they change people's understanding of what's going on in the world.”

and five more......

On his inspiration: 'The completely solitary self: that's where poetry comes from, and it gets isolated by crisis”

On which animal he'd prefer to be: "I might enjoy being an albatross, being able to glide for days and daydream for hundreds of miles along the thermals. And then being able to hang like an affliction round some people's necks."

On fame: "The gift of writing is to be self-forgetful, to get a surge of inner life or inner supply or unexpected sense of empowerment, to be afloat, to be out of yourself. The prizes can’t help you at all.”

On becoming a poet: "My quest for precision and definition, while it may lead backward, is conducted in the living speech of a landscape and a language that I was born with. If you like, I began as a poet when my roots were crossed with my reading."

On authority "At home in Ireland, there's a habit of avoidance, an ironical attitude towards the authority figure. "

Easter Hope All Year Round

Celestial spirit that doth roll
The heart's sepulchral stone away,
Be this our resurrection day,
The singing Easter of the soul -
O gentle Master of the Wise,
Teach us to say: "I will arise." ~
Richard Le Gallienne

"The great gift of Easter is hope - Christian hope which makes us have that confidence in God, in his ultimate triumph, and in his goodness and love, which nothing can shake."
-- Basil C. Hume

Celtic Christianity may offer us a lifeline in the form of an approach to faith which is rooted in the imagination...[Celts] excelled at expressing their faith in symbols, metaphors and images, both visual and poetic.
They had the ability to invest the ordinary and commonplace with sacramental significance, to find glimpses of God’s glory throughout creation and to paint pictures in words, signs and music that acted as icons opening windows on heaven and pathways to eternity
Ian Bradley The Celtic Way

Favourite Quotes from Pope Francis

“Thanks to magnanimity, we can always look at the horizon from the position where we are. That means being able to do the little things of every day with a big heart open to God and to others. That means being able to appreciate the small things inside large horizons, those of the kingdom of God.

This offers parameters to assume a correct position for discernment, in order to hear the things of God from God’s ‘point of view.’ … However the risk in seeking and finding God in all things, then, is the willingness to explain too much, to say with human certainty and arrogance: ‘God is here.’ We will find only a god that fits our measure. The correct attitude is that of St. Augustine: seek God to find him, and find God to keep searching for God forever.”

-- Pope Francis

Carlo Caretto's Love Letter to His Church

How much I much criticise you my church and yet how much I love you !

You have made me suffer more than anyone and yet I owe you more than I owe anyone. I should like to see you destroyed and yet I need your presence.

You have given me much scandal and yet you alone have made me understand holiness. Never in the world have I seen anything more obscurantist, more compromised, more false, yet never have I touched anything more pure, more generous or more beautiful.

Countless times I have felt like slamming the door of my soul in your face – and yet, every night, I have prayed that I might die in your arms!

No, I cannot be free of you, for I am one with you, even if not completely you.
Then too – where should I go? To build another church?

But I cannot build another church without the same defects, for they are my own defects. And again, if I were to build another church, it would be my church, not Christ’s church. No, I am old enough. I know better!"

Did the Woman Say ?

Great Quotes

A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God.

Sidney Sheldon

There are things you can’t reach. But
you can reach out to them, and all day long.
The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of God.
And it can keep you as busy as anything else, and happier.

Mary Oliver

“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.”

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"There is an Indian proverb or axiom that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional, and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but, unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person."

~Rumer Godden, A House with Four Rooms, 1989

“And

"
"You can get all A's and still flunk life."

"Lost in the mystery of finding myself alive."

Walker Percy

"The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom”

A tough life needs a tough language-and that's what poetry is. That's what literature offers- a language powerful enough to say how it is. It isn't a hiding place. It is a finding place.
Jeanette Winterson

There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, “All right, then, have it your way.”

- C.S. Lewis

The independent hearts of Celtic descendents everywhere still yearn for the solitary place, still rejoice in the goodness of creation, still see the Lord beside them as they walk, still see Him in the face of friend and stranger. The gospel light with its eastern fire still gleams. The truth still lingers in the heart.
Pat Robson – The Celtic Heart

People are itchy and lost and bored and quick to jump at any fix. Why is there such a vast self-help industry in this country? Why do all these selves need help?

They have been deprived of something by our psychological culture. They have been deprived of the sense that there is something else in life, some purpose that has come with them into the world."

-- James Hillman

Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government only when it deserves it.
--Mark Twain

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
--George Orwell

We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice: - we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
-- George Orwell

Never for the sake of peace and quiet deny your own experience or convictions.
--Dag Hammarskjöld

If you want to build a ship don't herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

For what are we, without hope in our hearts, that someday we'll drink from God's blessed waters?"
-Bruce Springsteen

"Sometimes grace works like waterwings when you feel you are sinking."
-Anne Lamott

"A prayer may be a wordless inner longing, a sudden outpouring of love, a yearning within the soul to be for a moment united within the infinite and the good, a humbleness that needs no abasement or speech to express it, a cry in the darkness for help when all seems lost, a song, a poem, a kind deed, a reaching for beauty, or the strong, quiet inner reaffirmation of faith. A prayer in fact can be anything that is created by God that turns to God."

Paul Gallico

"God does not die when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illuminated by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason."

Dag Hammarskjold

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.”

― Paul Hawken

The greatest religious challenge of our age is to hold together social action and spiritual disciplines. This is not just a theological necessity, dictated by the need to integrate all of life around the reality of the living God. It is a matter of sheer survival. The evils we confront are so massive, so inhuman, so impervious to appeals and dead to compassion, that those who struggle against them face the real possibility of being overwhelmed by them.”

~ Theologian Walter Wink

One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours?
I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life.

~ Khalil Gibran

Blue Eyed Ennis

Friday Octave of Easter 2012 - Jesus Prepares Breakfast On The Beach

Gospel Jn 21:1-14

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Friday Octave of Easter 2012 - Jesus Prepares Breakfast On The Beach

Gospel Jn 21:1-14

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