Homily 24

Pronounced before the people

in the basilica (outside the walls)

Blessed Lawrence, martyr,

Easter Wednesday

April 18, 591

The second miraculous catch

In the Gospel of the day, St. John recounts the appearance of the risen Jesus on the shores of Lake Tiberias in several pictures, which inspire the successive developments of this Homily. Saint Gregory tries to identify the allegorical meaning of the main elements of the story, before inviting his listeners to live in the spirit of Christ and in the perspective of Heaven.

Pierre returns fishing: the speaker first explains why he was allowed to continue to practice this trade. Then he subtly exposes the hidden meaning of this second miraculous catch, and why it is Peter who pulls the net on the ground. Mastering perfectly the symbolism of numbers, the preacher then states what are the one hundred and fifty-three big fish. Then he sheds light on the meaning of the grilled fish, the honeymoon and the meal that Jesus takes with seven disciples. If the exegetical conclusions which Gregory manages to draw from such prosaic realities surprise us, they are no less consoling, since the saint assures us that our imperfections will not prevent us from taking part in the banquet of Heaven. He puts a condition ...

The passage over the one hundred and fifty-three big fish allows us to evoke the place of the symbolism of numbers in the thought of our author. In full agreement with Biblical usage and the line followed by previous Fathers, he considers number as a means of attaining the knowledge of divine truth. He says thus in our Homily: "The evangelist would not take the trouble to formulate the total number [of fish] with this precision, if he had not judged it full of mystery (plenum sacramento)." All the data of the symbolism that he implements, the pope borrows them from the Holy Scripture (ten

1 Amor ipse notitia est. For the soul, to know God is nothing but to love him, because in this case it is love that knows. Per amorem agnoscimus, says St. Gregory in the Morals (10, 13). And Dom Gillet comments (Christian Sources 32 bis, Introduction, pp. 36-38): "[In the act of contemplation] intelligence is elevated above its usual modes of knowing. [...] We contemplate the beauty of commandments, seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, three divine persons, etc.). It is therefore within a framework firmly drawn by the divine Word that he constructs his interpretation, moreover oriented towards the usefulness of his listeners. Nothing in all this can be called ridiculous. Let us learn to recognize a magnificent effort to penetrate the truths of faith in the souls of the faithful, in a form that is easily assimilated to them. Our contemporaries, so fond of games of numbers and letters, will they find fault?

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1 Amor ipse notitia est. For the soul, to know God is nothing but to love him, because in this case it is love that knows. Per amorem agnoscimus, says St. Gregory in the Morals (10, 13). And Dom Gillet comments (Christian Sources 32 bis, Introduction, pp. 36-38): "[In the act of contemplation] intelligence is elevated above its usual modes of knowing. [...] We contemplate the beauty of our Creator in a knowledge of love. "

2 A play of words that is easy to make by accentuating the Latin words: amicus (friend) = á [ni] mi cús [tos] (depositary of his will).

3 St. Gregory refers to Ex 17: 4: "Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, 'What shall I do for this people? A little more, and they will stone me. "» We do not read, however, that Moses was actually stoned.

Jn 21, 1-14

At that time Jesus appeared again to his disciples by the sea of ​​Tiberias. It appeared thus: Simon Peter, Thomas, called Didymus, Nathanael, who was from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee and two other of his disciples were together. Simon Peter said to them, "I go fishing." They said to him, "We are going with you, too." So they went out and got into the boat; but they took nothing that night.

When the morning came, Jesus was on the shore, but the disciples did not know it was Jesus. But Jesus said to them, "Children, have you nothing to eat?" They answered him, "No." Then he said to them, "Throw the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find it." So they threw it to him. and they could not pull it anymore because of the multitude of fish. Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord." Simon Peter, hearing that it was the Lord, put on his tunic - for he was naked - and threw himself into the sea. They came with the boat - they were not far from the land: about two hundred cubits - and they drew the net full of fish.

When they went down, they saw there burning coals, fish put on it and bread. Jesus said to them, "Bring some fish that you have just caught." Simon Peter got into the boat and pulled the net filled with one hundred and fifty-three large fishes to the ground. And despite their number, the net does not break. Jesus said to them, "Come and eat." And none of those who sat down at table dared to ask him, "Who are you?" For they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and so did the fish. It was already the third appearance of Jesus to his disciples since he was raised from the dead.

The passage of the Holy Gospel that your ears have just heard, my brethren, causes our soul to ask itself a question, and invites it by the very fact to be discerning. One may wonder why Peter, who had been a fisherman before his conversion, returned to fishing after his conversion, and why he returned to what he had left, while the Truth declares: "Whoever puts the hand to the plow and look back is not worthy of the Kingdom of God "(Lk 9, 62). But if one resorts to the virtue of discernment, one sees quickly that it was not a fault [for Peter] to return, after his conversion, to a profession which he exercised without sin before his conversion. Pierre, we know, was a fisherman, and Matthew a tax collector; but if Pierre returned to his profession of fisherman after his conversion, Matthew did not resume his charge of tax collector. Because to earn a living from fishing is one thing, to increase one's fortune by the gains of tax collection is another. There are indeed a number of trades that are almost or even impossible to practice without sinning. To those professions which lead to sin, the soul must absolutely refrain from returning after its conversion.

2. One may also wonder why, after his Resurrection, while his disciples were struggling at sea, the Lord stood on the shore, he who, before his Resurrection, had walked on the waves under the eyes of his disciples ( see Mt 14:25). The reason is quickly grasped by considering the underlying cause of this difference. Indeed, what symbolizes the sea, if not the present world, beaten by the tumultuous waves of business and the turbulence of this corruptible life? And what does the firmness of the shore represent, if not the perennity of eternal rest? The disciples were therefore struggling at sea, since they were still caught in the waves of mortal life. But our Redeemer, after his Resurrection, stood on the shore, because he had already escaped the corruptibility of the flesh. It is as if he wanted to use these things to speak to his disciples about the very mystery of his Resurrection, saying to them: "I do not appear to you anymore on the sea, for I am no longer with you in the "In the same sense as in another place, he said to these same disciples after his Resurrection," I told you these things when I was still with you. "(Lk 24, 44). It was not that he was no longer with them; his body was present and appeared to them; he declared, however, that he was no longer with them, since he had departed from their mortal body by the immortality of his flesh. The Lord, in this passage, told his disciples to no longer be with them, though he was in their midst; here [in our gospel], it is the same thing that he signals by the position of his body, when in the eyes of the disciples who are still sailing, he is now established on the shore.

Great was for the disciples the difficulty of fishing, so that at the coming of the Master, great also be the measure of their admiration. Jesus immediately said, "Throw the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find it." The Holy Gospel reports twice that the Lord has commanded to cast the nets for fishing: one before his Passion, the other after his Resurrection. But while before the Passion and the Resurrection, our Redeemer ordered to throw the nets to fish without specifying whether they should be left or right, when he appeared to the disciples after the Resurrection, he ordered to throw the net on the right. In the first fishery, so many fish are caught that the nets break; in the second, we take a lot, but the nets do not break.

Who does not know that the right means the good, and the left the bad? The first fishing, where we do not prescribe to throw the net on one side rather than the other, thus symbolizes the Church present: she picks up the good ones with the bad guys, without choosing the ones she trains, since she also ignores those she can choose. In the other fishery, which takes place after the Resurrection of the Lord, the net is thrown to the right, and to the right only, for only the vision of the splendor of the glory of the Lord, the Church of the elect, in whom nothing can be found of the actions of the Left.

If the net is broken in the first catch by the large number of fish, it is because among the elect who come forward today to confess the faith, also mingle many reprobates, who tear the Church by heresies . But if in the second fishery, we take fish both large and large, but the net is not broken, it is because schisms can no longer tear the holy Church of the elect, the one that rests forever in the peace of his Founder.

4. After taking so many big fish, "Simon Peter got into the boat and pulled the net to the ground." I suppose your charity grasps why it was Peter who pulled the net to the ground. It is to him, in fact, that the holy Church was entrusted, it is to him that it was said personally: "Simon, son of John, do you love me? Feed my sheep "(Jn 21:16). Thus, what was later clearly stated in words is now signified by an action. It is the preacher of the Church who separates us from the waves of this world; it is therefore necessary that Peter leads the net full of fish on the ground. And he fired the fish himself on shore from the shore, since he made known to the faithful by his holy preaching the immutability of the eternal homeland. He did it by his words as well as by his epistles, he does it again every day by his miracles. Whenever he brings us to the love of eternal rest, whenever he detaches us from the tumult of earthly things, are we not fish caught in the nets of faith, which he draws at shore?

By stating that the net is full of large fish, the text also specifies the amount, one hundred and fifty-three. This number contains a great mystery, the very depth of which solicits all your attention. Indeed, the evangelist would not take the trouble to formulate the total number with this precision, if he had not judged it full of mystery. You know that all that we have to do is prescribed to us in the Old Covenant by the Ten Commandments, while in the News, a growing number of the faithful are given the strength to do the same works by the septhetic grace of God. Holy Spirit, as announced by the prophet: "Spirit of wisdom and understanding, Spirit of counsel and strength, Spirit of knowledge and piety, and Spirit of fear of the Lord, who will fill it." Is 11, 2). But it is not possible to act through this Spirit unless one adheres to the Trinitarian faith, believing and confessing that the Father, the Son, and the same Holy Spirit are of one and the same power, of one and same substance. And since seven [gifts] - we have just spoken about it - are lavishly bestowed on us by the New Testament, while ten [commandments] are imposed on us by the Old, all our virtues and all our works can be included in the ten and seven. Multiply ten and seven by three, we get fifty-one: this number certainly contains a great mystery, for we read in the Old Testament that the fiftieth year must be called a jubilee year, during which the whole people rest from all work (see Lev 25:11). But true rest is in unity, which can not be divided; indeed, where there is a splitting crack, there is no real rest. Multiply fifty-one by three, to get one hundred and fifty-three. Since all our works, performed in faith in the Trinity, lead us to rest, we have multiplied seventeen by three, so as to obtain fifty-one. And our true rest being attained by the knowledge of the glory of this same Trinity, which we firmly believe to exist within the divine unity, we multiply fifty-one by three and we hold the total sum of the elect in the heavenly homeland, that number of one hundred and fifty-three fishes. It was fitting that the net cast after the Resurrection of the Lord should take the number of fish needed to designate the elect who inhabit the heavenly homeland.

5. On the other hand, the Gospel passages read yesterday and today stimulate us to look carefully at why we read that the Lord, our Redeemer, ate grilled fish after his resurrection. What he has accomplished twice can not be without mystery. We were told today that he was eating bread and grilled fish, and in yesterday's reading it was grilled fish with a honeycomb (see Lk 24: 42-43). What, in your opinion, may well symbolize grilled fish [piscem ass], if not the Mediator between God and men, who has suffered [passum] 2? For he has deigned to hide himself in the waters of the human race; he wanted to be caught in the net of our death and be, so to speak, roasted by suffering at the time of his Passion.

But he who deigned to make himself a grilled fish in his Passion showed himself to us honeycomb in his Resurrection. And if in grilled fish he wanted to show the suffering of his passion, did he not want to express in the honeycomb the double nature of his person? A honeycomb is honey in wax; and honey in wax is divinity in humanity.

This is not at odds with today's reading: the Lord eats fish and bread. He who was able, as a man, to be grilled like a fish, restores us bread as God. He affirmed it: "I am the Living Bread descended from Heaven" (Jn 6:51). He therefore eats grilled fish and bread to show us, by his very food, that he has fulfilled his Passion by virtue of humanity which he shares with us, and that he has procured us our food under his divinity.

If we look closely, we also see how it suits us to imitate it. For the Redeemer reveals himself to us, who follow him, only to open the way for us to imitate him. Our Lord wanted, in his meal, to join a honeymoon to the grilled fish, because he receives in his body for the eternal rest those who, in spite of the tribulations which they suffer here below for the Lord, do not do not lose the love of inner sweetness. With grilled fish, he eats a honeymoon, since those who suffer here for Truth are satiated up there with true sweetness.

6. It should also be noted that according to the Gospel, the Lord took this last meal with seven of his disciples; Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, the sons of Zebedee, and two of his disciples were there. Why does the Lord celebrate the last feast with seven disciples, except to teach that only those who are filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit will be with him at the eternal banquet? On the other hand, it is between the seven days that the present time unfolds, and the number seven often symbolizes perfection. These, then, at the last feast, are satiated with the presence of the Truth, which now exceed the things of the earth by their zeal for perfection, without being hindered by the love of this world, nor discouraging to lead to well their rising desires, even if the world troubles them in a thousand ways by its solicitations.

It is with regard to this last feast that John declares in another passage: "Blessed are those who are called to the wedding supper of the Lamb" (Rev 19: 9). If he does not say that they are called to lunch, but to supper, it is because the end of the day feast is supper. Those who, at the end of the present life, come to the banquet of heavenly contemplation, are therefore not called to the Lamb's supper, but to his supper. This one is signified by this last feast, to which we are told that seven disciples were present, for it is then that the Lord, as we have said, restores inwardly those who, filled here below with the grace of septiform, aspire to love infused by the Spirit.

Do so, my brothers. Desire to be filled with the presence of this Spirit. Judge, by the state where you are now, what may happen to you later. See if you are filled with this Spirit, to know if you deserve to come to this feast. Surely, whoever is not here below regenerated by the Spirit will not have a share in the feast of the eternal banquet.

Remember what Paul says about this Spirit: "If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ" (Rom 8: 9). This Spirit of love is, so to speak, a sign of our belonging to God. Can he indeed have the Spirit of Christ, the one whose soul is torn by hatred, swell with pride, carry away with wrath until the bewilderment of the spirit, torture with avarice? , or soften by lust? Realize what the Spirit of Christ is. It is certainly a Spirit who makes us love our friends and our enemies, despise the goods of the earth, burn with desire for those of Heaven, chastise our flesh for its vices, prevent our soul from following its concupiscences. Do you want to know if you really are God? Examine who possesses you. Now Paul is shouting to us in all truth what we have said to you: "If anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ." It is as if he clearly said, " He who is not directed down here by the God who lives in him will not be able to enjoy later the vision of divine glory. "

But unfortunately! we are weak to accomplish what has just been said to us, and still far from the summit of perfection. Well, let us walk every day in the way of God in the step of a holy desire. Truth comforts us, since it makes the psalmist say: "Your eyes have seen me still imperfect, but on your book all will be written" (Ps 139, 16). Our imperfection, therefore, will not cause us any real damage if, engaged in the way of God, we do not look to what has happened, and if we hasten to advance to what remains to be done. For whoever has the goodness to kindle desires into imperfect souls will fortify them one day to bring them to perfection, through our Lord Jesus Christ, who, being God, lives and reigns with him in the unity of the Holy One. -Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen.

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1 If St. Gregory excludes superiors here, it seems, because in addition to human nature, we must honor in them the authority with which they are clothed. We must not only honor their nature made in the image of God, but also the authority that God has given them over us.