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Today is the Feast Day of Saint Bartholemew, one of the Twelve Apostles! Little is known about St Bart but some scholars identify him with Nathanael, a man of Cana in Galilee who was summoned to Jesus by Philip. Jesus paid him a great compliment: “Here is a true Israelite. There is no duplicity in him” (John 1:47b). When Nathanael asked how Jesus knew him, Jesus said, “I saw you under the fig tree” (John 1:48b). Whatever amazing revelation this involved, it brought Nathanael to exclaim, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel” (John 1:49b). But Jesus countered with, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than this” (John 1:50b). Source: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-bartholomew/

In today’s blog feature, young Sydney-based Catholic Alexander Westenberg reflects on the Gospel story of ’Jesus and the Miraculous Fish’. In this Gospel, Jesus, after His resurrection, appears on a sea shore to His disciples and Peter, upon recognising Him, immediately jumps out of the boat and into the water to make his way toward Jesus. Alexander has always found Peter’s actions here to be a little comic, wondering if Peter was just trying to avoid helping the others with the difficult job of dragging the net full of fish! But upon further reflection, he noticed a lot more in this account that he could apply to daily life, and you could too.