Transformation and transcendence

The texts today from the Roman Catholic Lectionary offer contemplation on the path and mission of Christians to be transformed and transforming  in our daily encounters with others through the action of the Holy Spirit which enables us to transcend boundaries of our personal limitations. Psalm 118 proclaims the mercy of God within which we celebrate the new day for the opportunity it brings to partake in restoration of stones rejected becoming cornerstones. Peter shows the power of the Spirit to transform as Friar Jude Winkler comments about the passage from the Acts of the Apostles. The crippled man transcends his disability through an act of faith in Jesus enabled by the impetuous action of Peter even though, as Cindy Murphy McMahon notes, he only sought some money from the apostle as he passed by. Friar Jude remarks that Golgotha the quarry where Jesus was crucified contained stones which had been rejected by the builders in the construction of the Temple. He suggests that the Cross was held in a crack in one of these stones. The Gospel from John tells of the encounter of the disciples with the Resurrected Jesus as they wrapped up their fishing as the day was dawning and the water temperature would force the fish to go deep. The person on the beach calling to the the fishers invites them to cast their nets to the other side of the boat. The mystery of why experienced fishers would spent the time and energy in an exercise which their common sense told them was foolish remains. It challenges us to be less quick to judge tasks which we are offered as a waste of time. The great catch which results initiates the possibility that they have transcended the ordinary. Friar Jude explains that the love of the disciple for Jesus is stirred and he proclaims that the stranger on the beach is Jesus. Impetuous Peter, who is often portrayed in the Gospel of John as clumsy and inept, confusingly puts on his clothes to swim to Jesus. This stone which would be rejected for leadership by our modern standards becomes the one who confronts the Sadducees and brings thousands to know Jesus as he becomes the fisher of men of all the nations.