Friday of the First Week of Easter
Knights of Columbus Board
Basilica of the Assumption, Baltimore
April 10, 2026
I. Business as Usual?
Sometimes we feel close to God. We experience consolation and joy in his presence. It might be a moment of quiet prayer. Or a particularly devout reception of Holy Communion. Or the joy of being forgiven in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. In such moments, we are like the Apostles who were overjoyed to see the Risen Lord.
But sometimes we may experience desolation – feelings of darkness, fear, separation from God. Prayer may be difficult. Doubt may creep in. In moments such as these, we may be like the Apostles who were fearful and full of doubt, even after encountering the Risen Lord. If our desolation is prolonged, we might ask, “How can I return to business as usual?” “How can I return to normality?
Could this be what is what is going on in today’s Gospel? The Apostles had encountered the Risen Lord twice before and were filled with joy. But because Jesus’ Resurrection was something totally new and difficult to fathom, they remained fearful – still persisting in doubt, still slow to understand. How could they grasp or even begin to describe Jesus’ humanity, glorified with the indestructible life and love of the Father? Perhaps it was too much to take in, altogether unsettling. By turns they experienced consolation and desolation. In the midst of all this, Simon Peter announces, “I am going fishing.” Was he trying to go back to life as it was before he met Jesus? Was he trying to bring back some sense of “normality”? We don’t know for sure. What we do know is that the Risen Lord was not about to let his Apostles return to their former way of life, as if they had never met him.
II. A Catch and a Cure
No, not content with that, the Risen Lord appeared to them again on the seashore – though at first they did not recognize him. The Apostles had been fishing all night and had caught nothing when the mysterious stranger on the seashore directed them to cast their nets on the starboard side for a catch. They may have sensed that this was no ordinary fisherman’s advice, but it was the astonishing catch of fish that opened their eyes. No one had to ask, “Are you the Lord?” – for they knew it was the Lord. Perhaps Jesus’ words rang in their ears: “Without me you can do nothing.” Apart from the Lord had they caught nothing. With him, their haul was immense. With that they ate breakfast with the Lord, a meal that evoked the institution of the Eucharist. Encountering the Risen Lord yet again, witnessing the miraculous catch of fish, having breakfast with him on the seashore – after that, there was no question of the Apostles’ going back to a former way of life.
And that is why the Church proclaims this Gospel to us in the Octave of Easter: After encountering the Crucified and Risen Lord during Lent, Holy Week, and the Easter Triduum – after experiencing the power of the Lord’s death and resurrection – a power undimmed by the passage of time – there can be no question of our simply going back to business as usual. Business as usual doesn’t just mean our daily routine. It means falling back into the bad habits we strove to conquer during Lent. It means taking familiar shortcuts in our life of prayer, indulging our appetites, while slipping back into attitudes of indifference to those in need.
The challenge of the Easter Season is to build on the spiritual progress of Lent, by walking in the footsteps of the Apostles – journeying from doubt and fear to faith and assurance. With them, let us witness with amazement the appearances of the Risen Lord, and to see and understand that our Redeemer lives in us and in our midst. Like the Apostles, let us grasp the bedrock truth that utterly no one else is like Jesus, indeed, there is “no other Name by which the human race can be saved.” Let the Name of Jesus be deep in our heart and on the tip of our tongue. Let the great catch of fish serve as a dramatic sign illustrating our mission to attract others to Christ and to the Church, and indeed to the Order, just as we read how the Apostles brought large numbers to believe in the Risen Lord. In the same breath, let us ask for the wisdom and courage to defend our faith, just as Peter and the other Apostles defended the power of the Risen Lord before those who demanded to know how a crippled man was cured.
III. Missionary Conversion
So far from burying the Risen Lord in our daily routine, or trying to domesticate the One who is the Alpha and the Omega, let us together heed the Church’s insistent invitation to encounter the Risen Christ, inviting him to walk with us on our daily pilgrimage, asking him to open for us the pages of Sacred Scripture, begging him to inflame our hearts with a love, a charity, like his own. When the new life of the Risen Christ has taken hold of us, when it possesses us so thoroughly that we can say, “it is not I who live but Christ who lives in me” – then we think differently, relate to others different, decide differently. We are interiorly free to practice a charity that evangelizes, Filled with the Spirit of the Risen Lord, we have the courage, the wisdom, and the zeal to help men form their hearts in the love of the Risen Lord, and to continue attracting to the Order husbands and fathers.
On Holy Saturday, after the Vigil had been celebrated, one of the newly baptized asked me about the inscription on the altar in the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen here in Baltimore. Emblazoned in gold are the letters IXTYC – initials for “Jesus, Son of God, Savior”. Those Greek letters also spell the word, “fish”, the symbol used by early Christians to identify themselves as believers. Let us daily identify ourselves as believers in the Risen Lord, for only in his Name do we make our miraculous catch of fish! And who better to go fishing with than the family of the Knights of Columbus! Vivat Jesus!