11/26/12 – Fish and Loaves: Dad’s acting debut

After the Primacy of Peter, we drove a short distance to Tabgha, the location where Jesus performed his miracle of the fish and loaves when he multiplied five loaves of bread and two fish in order to feed many… or maybe it was two loaves of bread and five fish, I can’t remember.  What I can remember is that when hearing of the miracle as a child I always pictured the masses eating raw fish, just biting into the sides of them, scales, skin, bones and all like a bunch of savages.  None of the passages about the miracle ever seemed to mention fires or filet knives, so my interpretation has always seemed entirely reasonable to me.

Now it was time for dad to perform.  At last night’s group meeting Sr. Jocelyn asked for four volunteers to re-enact the miracle of the fish and loaves; the group suggested that dad play the part of Jesus.  Although he looked extremely apprehensive he was in no position to turn down such an honour.

Sr. Jocelyn had made arrangements for our group to have access to a private area closer to the shore and well away from the crowds visiting the on-site monastery.  Dad donned his costume: Deacon Mike’s robe and a scarf for his head.  In a word, dad looked biblical.

Deacon Mike explains the finer points of head scarves 

After a stuttered start on account of a video camera failure (I’ll give you one guess as to who was responsible), dad revealed his inner thespian.  Sure it was only four lines, but what delivery!  What hand motions!  Even the hyraxes (an groundhog type animal) had come to watch.  When they were done, the performers took a well-deserved bow.  Exeunt.

Hyrax

I would have never imagined that dad would have acted out anything for an audience; maybe miracles do happen.