A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. Jesus showed himself to disciples once again at the Sea Of Tiberias up in the North country, Sea Of Galilee. And this is how it took place. Assembled were Simon Peter, Thomas, the twin, Nathaniel from Cana in Galilee, Zebedee's sons, and two other disciples. Simon Peter said to them, I'm going fishing.
We will go along with you, they replied. And they went off and got into their boat. All through the night, they fished and caught nothing. Very typical fishing trip. Just after daybreak, Jesus was standing on the shore.
He said to them but the disciples did not recognize him. Jesus said to them, children, have you caught anything to eat? Not a thing, they answered. Cast your net off to the starboard side, Jesus said, and you will find something. So they cast their net on the starboard side and they took in so many fish that they could not haul the net in to the boat.
Then the disciple that Jesus loved, that's John, he's the writer, cried out to Peter, it is the lord. On hearing it was the lord, this is typical, Peter. On hearing that it was the lord, Simon Peter threw on some clothes, and jumped into the water. Didn't even take a light preserver with him. Meanwhile, the other disciples came up to the boat, came in the boat, towing the net, couldn't the net into the boat, full of fish.
Actually, they were not far from land, no more than a 100 yards. Have you tried to swim a 100 yards lately? Whoever translates this stuff, you know, they're they're off their beam. Anyway, they came ashore and when they landed, they saw a charcoal fire and there was a fish laid on it and some bread already. Jesus said, bring some of the fish that you've caught.
Simon Peter went aboard and hauled ashore the net loaded with sizable fish. 153, they counted them. In spite of the great number, the net was not torn. Then Jesus said, come and eat your meal. Not one of the disciples dared ask, who are you?
For they knew it was the lord. Jesus came over, took the bread, and gave it to him, and then he did the same thing with the cooked fish. This marked the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after being raised from the dead. And this is the gospel, the good news of the lord. The name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit.
Amen. For for four days and this is the fifth, I have been emphasizing the credibility of the resurrection of Christ. Because you know it's not a universally accepted fact, and even those within the holy Roman Catholic church today, some deny it entirely, and some say that it didn't take place physically, father Coffey, for example. That what matters is the spirit, the resurrection of the spirit, whatever that is. Now yesterday, I put a proposition to you that has not at all been faced as far as I know.
There are we have four gospels, we have epistles, and we have the book of the acts, and there are inconsistencies. And some of them are pretty big. For example, the ascension of our lord. One has it up near the Lake Of Galilee. One has it in a a room where they're having a meal, and the other the third one has it near Jerusalem in Bethany.
Well, it couldn't have taken place from all three places. You're going from the North of the of Palestine to the South, and then one of them has them has them in the room. So there are there are discrepancies. But the point yesterday I made is this. These these documents are human they were written by human beings.
They were not written simultaneously. They spread from about '57 to as late as a 100 A. D. Saint Paul's epistle to the Corinthians, about '57. That's a pretty sure date.
Acts of the apostles, 70 to 90, and the gospels are a little later than that. So they weren't written simultaneously. And those that were written later had the former the earlier documents before them. Why didn't they why didn't they erase the inconsistencies? Why didn't they smooth them out?
In other words, they didn't think it was that important. Keep that in mind. There is no difference of opinion about the essentials at all, that we have an empty tomb, a physically empty tomb. And this business that they could've been mistaken about the tomb, it's ridiculous ridiculous in in view view of of the the evidence evidence in in view view of of the the evidence. Evidence.
Now another thing, there is not a single time that Christ appears to the disciples that it was anticipated. Anticipated. They are always taken by surprise. It's un that they are not anticipating it. And in almost every instance, they express doubt.
They don't believe it's the lord to begin with. This is something in other words, recognition doesn't come at all at once. Even according to Saint Mark, when our lord, after his resurrection, says, go up to Galilee, and I will meet you in Galilee. And there, he ascended into heaven. Even there, Mark says, they doubted when they saw the lord.
They doubted. So all this fuss and fury that some of our great, critics make today based upon, as I said, mostly upon von Hartmann and, Voltmann and their Catholic apologists. It's water over the dam. These documents are very human in their inconsistencies. Because if they were very consistent, then everybody would say there was collusion.
That's a way where you can't win. As Newman said, it was objecting, why didn't Christ appear to more people? As Newman said, if it appeared to more people remember Newman's writing at the end of the nineteenth century. Newman said, then they would have said it was just a business of mob psychology. Lewis Newman was way ahead of Freud in his psychology.
Now today, within the church, the resurrection the physical resurrection of Christ is being assailed, as I point out Easter Sunday. We have a man teaching in the University of Loyola in Chicago who says there was no resurrection. Sheehan, Thomas Sheehan. And he's not fired. No.
He's a tenured philosopher. So this is the world you're living in, and yet keep this in mind. Your faith rests upon the resurrection. Father Coffey down in Australia says it doesn't make any difference about an empty tomb. It makes all the difference in the world whether that tomb was empty or not.
That tomb was not empty. As Saint Paul says, vain is my preaching, vain is your faith. And you think what you've given of your life for your faith. Now the final point I wanna make after these five days is this. The Catholic we've been talking about the written word.
The church of Jesus Christ is not based upon the written word. Just keep this you've got to keep assuring yourself of this. This business of taking our religion on a book starts with Martin Luther, century. The Catholic church was in full existence, flourishing, before a single word was written. We do not have the New Testament pretty much as we have it until the end of the first century.
The Catholic church is based upon word-of-mouth. Our lord's last appearance, wherever it was, when he saw his disciples, he says, going therefore, teach ye all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and the holy spirit, and teaching them everything that I have commanded you. And I will be with you until the end of time. Christ didn't hand out a lot of Xerox copies of his latest sermon. Christ, as far as we know, didn't write a single word.
Maybe he wrote something in the sand, I don't know. But he certainly didn't leave a book. He didn't leave any letters. He didn't write anything. All he said to his primitive church was, teach what I have commanded you.
But don't forget the last sentence. And behold, I am with you all days to the end of time. And where do you find the living voice of Jesus Christ in the year of our lord 1989, March 31? The voice of Peter speaking from Rome, and we hear the voice of a man named John Paul. In the name of the father, of the son, of the spirit.
Amen.