Breakfast Served!

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When I diet I figure that a good way to cut calories and lose weight is to begin early in the morning and skip breakfast and follow a diet from these fat flusher diet reviews. However, everything I read tells me that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Breakfast gives me the per­sonal jolt I need to get myself going with work or whatever; a bal­anced, nutritious breakfast also jolts the metabolism and gives off energy.

After the resurrection, the disciples need a jolt. They cannot return to their former way of living. They have encountered Jesus during his earthly ministry. Now they encounter the risen Christ and are invited to share in his ongoing ministry.

This Sunday’s gospel is one in which the word “breakfast” occurs .  It is early in the morning—“already dawn.” The right time for break­fast with all its advantages. The disciples have been out fishing and, upon returning to shore, Jesus asks them, “have you caught anything to eat?” Their answer was a simple, unqualified “No.” No fish, no breakfast. Not so! Jesus invites them, “Come, have break­fast.” It is as though Jesus knows the disciples need a jolt—they need to be tugged out of their familiar routine and transformed. They need the spiritual nutrition of encounter and belief for them to declare their love and follow with fidelity. [Living Liturgy 2013]

This gospel details the transformation made possible by the risen Christ.

The Resurrection transforms the way things are. The risen Christ transforms the way we are, enabling us to obey his ongoing invitation, “Follow me.” We are fortified by Jesus’ risen Presence, by his invitation to follow, by his own love for us that transforms our love into faithfulness and fruitfulness. Risen Life forti­fies us for the transformation needed on our discipleship journey of seeing-believing. Risen Life is given to us by Christ, but we must also seek it. Risen Life is a gift, but we must also grasp it.

How does the risen Lord now call us to transformation? to follow him?  The risen Lord stands on the shore of all our activity waiting to reveal to us the depths of what we cannot find on our own, the depths of who we can become. Risen Life is not found by going back to who we used to be and where we were. Risen Life is only found by continuing to follow the risen Lord in new directions, wherever he leads us. Even where we might “not want to go.”