"Caught anything?"

Howard Hayden fly-casting on the Stilly

By the beach near the Church of the Multiplication of Fishes in Tabgha along the Sea of Galilee is the Church of the Primacy of Peter, and in it on a rock that may be a good place to cook fish and bread for breakfast, is the Table of Christ (Mensa Christi) the traditional place to remember and revere the encounter of the Risen Christ with Peter (Cephas, from the Aramaic word כיפא kepha meaning "rock, stone") and the other disciples, as they had followed their native common sense (and the commandment transmitted by the women who had been to the Tomb as Easter dawned upon them) back to Galilee. 

"There you will see me" Jesus had said; nevertheless, they went fishing. All night. Caught nada, until he showed up at daybreak (a lovely time of day there on the lake of Gennesaret). So he guided them.

They cast down their net again and received what they could not fathom except through the mind of faith: a miraculous catch of fish.

Remember what I said? Jesus does not say. I wish make you fishers of souls. Time for a reminder.

 And Peter is first out of the boat, as usual. And maybe not last on the uptake. There on a rock (ahem)  fish and bread are ready for them to break at long last the fast they have been really keeping: the containment of their desire for nourishment of his presence. 

It is not something they could do alone, or by natural means. We are beyond that now. And in the expectation of his continuing presence in and through the Holy Spirit, it is possible, now as it was for them, to be sustained in the word of God.

The rock is faith. That is where it all begins. That is where it comes from. And that is where he led them, once again, when it had seemed all was futile. But now it begins anew. And all they were called for, all they were promised, is coming to unexpected fruition, in the dawning of a new day.

 

Mensa Christi (Table of Christ)

 Church of the Primacy of Peter, Tabgha

We saw these creatures in the shallows along the lakeshore as we were visiting the Church of the Primacy of Peter in January 2015 (Here they are depicted in an ancient mosaic inside the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes):  

Matthew 16:18

And I tell you, you are Peter (Gk Petros), and on this rock (Gk petra) I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.