Christ and the smell of fish

The Mistress of Novices in Kathryn Hulme’s The Nun’s Story capturing some of the difficulties of life in community:

‘Once, long ago, I too found the community life a pure agony.  I suffered, knowing that my forced participation could never be pleasing to God.  I struggled to overcome this.  I thought about the Christ who took to Himself the very humblest of companions.  I told myself that quite possibly He could not abide the smell of fish or the frequently childish talk of those simple disciples.  Yet… He lived with them and spoke with them in the picturesque parables they could understand, He who had confounded the scholars of the temple when only twelve years old.’