An Astonishing Abundance
“[Peter] and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken.”
In the tradition of visual artistry, the subject of today’s Gospel lesson is described as the “miraculous catch” or the “miraculous drought.” It seems there is a lot that one could play with in Jesus’s sly revision of the vocation of these fishermen into fishers OF men, but I’ve yet to find a visual representation that really captures the deliciousness of it. This image actually is of the other miraculous catch of John 21 — we know because Jesus is on the shore, rather than in the boat with the disciples — but it beautifully captures something of the relationship between the disciples and Jesus, and human nature and “fish nature” in the motion of the lines around the central brightness of the Son, from the Savior, through the waters (where they take on the form of fish), and up into the boat, where they form the outlines of the disciples. The artist, a British expressionist, John Reilly, paints from a place of deep faith and wonder that resonates profoundly with our Scriptures for this week.
By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.
— The Holy Apostle St Paul (1 Cor 15:10)
The Fifth Sunday of Epiphany
Texts for this Week
Prayer
O Lord, our heavenly Father, keep your household the Church continually in your true religion, that we who trust in the hope of your heavenly grace may always be defended by your mighty power; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever.
Pescador de Hombres
Perhaps the most popular modern hymn in Spanish — and well known to be the favorite hymn of John Paul II — Pescador de Hombres imagines from a first person point of view Jesus coming to the seashore to call the disciple to follow. The hymnographer, Fr. Cesáreo Gabaráin, was one of the most prolific evangelistic hymn writers of the period immediately post-Vatican II — certainly in Spanish, and perhaps throughout the Roman Catholic Church.
