Friday in the Octave of Easter

Lectionary: 265

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.

Twice during the last few years, as I reflected on the readings of this Easter Friday, I have recalled Samuel Becket's Waiting for Godot, a 1950's era theater of the absurd. The two principle characters have nothing to do and no place to go and are monumentally bored. They seem to be trapped in a bleak landscape, in an endless stasis where nothing happens and nothing can or should happen. They have only to wait for a mysterious person who might offer them a job; but the audience suspects from the outset that "Godot" will never come and might not exist.

In today's gospel Jesus' disciples seem caught in the same vacuous space.

"I'm going fishing." says Peter, for no particular reason.

"We'll come with you!" say the others. (It will pass the time.)

But, predictably, they catch nothing until a stranger unexpectedly appears and asks, "Have you caught anything?" (I used to fish as a kid and passers-by always ask if you caught anything.)

I took my mother to see Waiting for Godot when she visited me in Louisiana. The play was put on by collegians, several generations younger than the playwright and first actors. Their timing was awful and the casting confusing but I was moved to tears nonetheless. Mom, on the other hand, came out complaining, "That was the dumbest thing I've ever seen!" Growing up during the Great Depression, the Second World War and the recurring recessions of the fifties and sixties, a practicing Catholic, married only once, she had never known the pointless existence of Didi and Gogo.

Because Saint John says nothing about the incident at Pentecost in Jerusalem, we cannot date this fishing expedition. Was it soon after that fateful Passover, a few weeks later, or several years. Perhaps the disciples, now retired, had gathered to reminisce about their adventures with Jesus. But they lack spirit. They are killing time and achieving nothing. It seems the Gospel endeavor has run its course --  until the Lord appears.

This addendum to the Fourth Gospel reminds us that, though the Lord has died and disappeared, we still need his daily encouragement and guidance. And he remains with us. We cannot enjoy a sense of purpose, develop useful plans or generate energy without his feeding us daily.