Quito 2024: Bishop Anthony Fisher makes an analogy of Jesus as the great fish that saves man

The Archbishop of Sydney (Australia), Bishop Anthony Fisher, referred to Jesus as the great fish that saves human beings in his homily at this Friday’s Mass at the International Eucharistic Congress in Quito.

“Jesus is not only the great fisherman, but the great fish who, according to Augustine, entered the murky waters of sin and death to redeem us. “He is the great fish that swallowed Jonah to save him,” said the Australian prelate.

In his homily, Bishop Fisher recalled that the gospels show that Christ used parables related to food to explain the Kingdom of Godwho attended lunches and fed people, as occurred with the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes.

“He preannounced his Eucharist by taking bread and fish and looking at heaven, blessed them and broke them, making his apostles distribute them and collect them. “Everyone ate and was satisfied,” he noted.

Bishop Fisher stated that “the bread distributed that day in Galilee returns in the last supper, the Eucharist of Emmaus and the last appearance of Jesus at the lake. But why is it combined here with fish and not with wine? Well, The fish was the symbol of the first persecuted Christians”.

He recalled that when mass was celebrated in the catacombs, the symbol of the fish was used to identify the tombs and altars of Christians.

“After all, the first disciples were fishermen, first of fish and then of men. “Fish appeared in the teachings and miracles of Jesus, and much of his public life took place in the fishing villages of Galilee,” he explained.

In that sense, he recalled that the father of the Church Tertullian “referred to Christians as little fish guided by the big fish, the Lord. By then, the Greek word ichtusmeaning fish, had become a play on words or acrostic of Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.”

Then, he expressed, “the bread is the fish, the Eucharistic bread of life is the stroke: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.”

“Jesus is the staple food of our poor souls -said the Australian archbishop-, the heavenly bread of life, the flesh of God so that we may consume it and thus share its substance and life.

Bishop Fisher said that “the Eucharist became church for us, so that we could drink, eat and commune with one another in the paschal mystery of Christ and thus participate together in his eternal life.”

“From Peter’s boat we, the disciples whom Jesus loves, sing the Eucharistic psalm of brotherhood,” he concluded.