When we go through a life changing event, a dramatic change can take place within us in an instant. Or, on the contrary, this life changing event can affect change that is gradual. We have just come out of the experience of the holy days of Lent and Holy Week. We may have had a dramatic one-time experience during those weeks. Or, more likely, the different Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting, and works of outreach we’ve observed during this holy season may have helped create a change in us that will carry over to our present daily lives, something that happened gradually. Before our passage today in John’s Gospel, Jesus had already appeared to Mary Magdalene once and the disciples in the locked room twice. A group of disciples go back to their previous life as fishermen, the way they made a living before they met Jesus. In their daily routine of fishing, Jesus appears to them again. The risen Lord appear to us in different ways in our ordinary lives. He will appear to us in great momentous occasions. He will appear to us subtly and gradually as well. The changes that the Lord will help enact in our lives may seem gradual and slow, but the Lord will not give up on us. The disciples we hear about in the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles are some of the same disciples we hear about in the Gospel. They are the same disciples, but we can see a change in them. The reality of the resurrection slowly changed their lives. May all of us allow our eyes to be opened and our lives to be transformed and changed by the reality of the risen Lord in our midst.
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