Loaves and Fishes

Mosaic in front of Altar
Church of the Loaves and Fishes
Capernaum near Sea of Galile

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today's first reading from the Book of Kings tells the story of how the prophet Elisha fed a hundred people with just twenty barley loaves and some fresh grain. It is in today's readings because it obviously introduces the feeding of five thousand people by Jesus that is recounted in today's gospel. 

We notice that Elisha's servant questioned how they could feed so many with so little but that the prophet insisted that he distribute what food they had. Just as in the gospel after all had eaten, there was still food left over. Finally, Elisha took no credit for himself. He said that he was just following the instructions of the Lord.

In today's gospel we have St. John's account of the miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fishes where instead of 100, Jesus fed 5000 people with only five loaves and two fish. Despite the fact that this miracle is the only one to appear in all four gospels, it is one of the most difficult for many people to accept. Today it is fashionable to offer a purely natural or sociological explanation. Some think that people were shamed by the selfless sharing of Jesus, and proceeded to take food which they had hidden about their persons and share it with their neighbors.

That's one theory but I prefer to think that the God who is responsible for every grain of wheat that grows on the earth, and for every fish that swims in the sea, could feed 5000 people. Right after this miracle we read in St. Mark's gospel that Jesus saved His disciples from drowning when he calmed the storm at sea. St. Mark relates this incident to the miracle of the loaves. He says that the disciples in the boat "were utterly beside themselves with astonishment, for they had not understood about the loaves, because their heart was blinded."

 Like many of the miracles of Jesus the loaves and fishes follows a standard format. Jesus is busy at his work of teaching and healing when a problem--a hungry crowd--comes to his attention. He asks Philip where can they find enough food to feed the multitude. Like Elisha's servant, Philip expresses doubt. He explains that even if they could find the food, the cost would be beyond their means. At this point Andrew, Peter's brother, chimes in and says that a boy has five barley loaves and two fish. Jesus then performed a kind of liturgy that should remind us of what happens at every Mass.

Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks,
and distributed them to those who were reclining,
and also as much of the fish as they wanted

When all the five thousand had eaten their fill, there was enough left over to fill five wicker baskets.


When Jesus performed a physical miracle like this, we can usually be sure that it had a spiritual dimension. Remember how after he had forgiven the sins of a paralyzed man, he healed his paralysis as a sign he could also forgive his spiritual malady. This miracle, where Jesus provided food for the 5000, has also always been viewed as a precursor of the Eucharistic sacrifice. Although many people in the world today still are hungry, many more seem to duffer from a real spiritual hunger.

This miracle, where Jesus provided food for the 5000, has also always been viewed as a precursor of the Eucharistic sacrifice. Many people find it hard today to believe that the Body and Blood of Jesus are offered in the Sacrifice of the Mass. Perhaps this lack of belief is one of the things that has led to so much of the spiritual hunger in our world. 

The Apostles must have been reminded of the loaves and fishes at the Last Supper when they saw Jesus take the bread, offer thanks, break it, and then say, "This is my body that is for you?" How could the bread be His Body? Or what about, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood." How could the wine be His Blood? We know that they believed it because He said it and because He would raise His Body from the dead only three days later. We also know that the first Christian communities also believed it and from the beginning repeated the Lord's words whenever they gathered together "in remembrance of Him."

In today's second reading from the letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul calls for unity in that community of new Christians. He says that there is "one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. No where is this unity seen more than when we all join together to receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord during the sacrifice of the Mass. It is there that He feeds us in the same way that he did the 5000 on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.

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Reading 1. 2 Kings 4: 42-44
Reading II. Ephesians 4: 1-6

Gospel. John 6: 1-15 (Loaves and Fishes). 

Woe to the Shepherds

                            16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

                                                B cycle

When I first wrote these reflections on the Sunday Mass readings more than fifteen years ago, I skipped over the readings for today. Perhaps it was just summer lethargy, but more likely it was the difficulty of tying these three readings together. Now at age 85 I think I see that the readings, especially the passage from Paul's letter to the Ephesians, indicate that while our leaders have often tended to separate us, it is Jesus who has broken down the wall of separation that can exist as an obstacle to peace and unity. Today, I would just like to put up a post about a kind of priest, who though affable and well-meaning, tends to put himself first and ignore the words of Jesus.

A few years ago on a visit to California my wife and I attended Sunday Mass at a church where the celebrant was a visiting priest. I have been attending Mass for most of my 80 odd years and it didn’t take long to realize that the celebrant was a liberal priest. His casual manner and demeanor were a tip off, and his homily confirmed my initial impression. 

A homily is supposed to be a reflection on the three major readings of the day, especially the gospel. As often happens, he ignored the readings and just used a word or two as a springboard into his own message. He asked us to consider our faults and shortcomings taking care never to call them sins, an old-fashioned word.

His homily contained a litany of liberal causes and by the time he concluded, I was asking myself if he could see any difference between Christianity and modern Liberalism. For example, what about self-sacrifice, humility, and gratitude: fundamental tenets of Christianity that have been rejected by modern liberals.

Instead, he mentioned the shooting of a doctor in Orange county, a so-called bastion of conservatism, white supremacy and racism despite the fact that 60 percent of its population is of Hispanic and Asian origin. The priest asked us to pray for the doctor but typically did not ask us to pray for the hundreds of young black men who are shot down by other young black men every year in nearby Los Angeles. He asked us to consider the plight of those who are designated LGBTQ, but never mentioned the plight of Christians in Moslem dominated countries who suffer almost daily brutal persecution at the hands of their neighbors. 

In a way, he seemed to be a little ashamed of Catholicism and found elements in its history that did not measure up to modern sensibilities. As an example he referred to colonialism, an issue especially relevant in California where the landscape is dotted with beautiful mission churches built by Franciscan missionaries in the eighteenth century to protect Native Americans (Indians) from the depredations of settlers from Spain and Mexico. 

 

Junipero Serra, a Franciscan friar, built a mission system in California in the eighteenth century to protect the  natives from the brutality and rapacity of Hispanic colonizers. Only after the anti-Catholic Mexican government shut down the missions in the nineteenth century were the natives thrown to the wolves. For his efforts, the Catholic church has canonized Fr. Serra, but protestors now vandalize and tear down commemorative memorials. 

 

The efforts of Junipero Serra and other missionaries like him provide just one example of the efforts of billions of Christians, canonized and uncanonized, down through the ages to improve the life of their fellow man. Even today, their work goes largely unrecognized or appreciated. Below is an assessment of an earlier group of missionaries by an English historian written over 100 years ago.

 

 

Every traveller to South Italy should come to Montecasino only because of the immense influence it has had in the history of Europe and indeed of mankind. Fourteen hundred years ago and more S. Benedict founded here the cradle of that Order of monks which transformed Europe, cut down its impenetrable forests, drained its impassable marshes, educated its barbarians and made them Christians. It was the monks of S. Benedict who converted the English, supplied the country with statesmen, counsellors and bishops and presently covered England with mighty houses, Glastonbury, Reading, Durham, and the like, to be utterly destroyed  by a reckless and unhappy king, yet are now rising again, so that it is today possible to land at Dover, cross the country to the Atlantic, and sleep at a Benedictine monastery every night. 

Missionaries like St. Junipero Serra, and St. Benedict are just the tip of the iceberg. Millions and millions of uncanonized saints have worked from the dawn of Christianity down to our present time to follow the command of Jesus to love one another. Some of these unrecognized saints were sitting in the pews quietly enduring the priest’s “woke” homily. He was lecturing them but, in all humility, he should try to get to know them. 

 

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Jeremiah 23: 1-6.

Ephesians 2: 13-18.

Mark 6: 30-33 (sheep without a shepherd).

Calling Apostles

                   15^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

                  B cycle

 

 

When we hear of prophets we usually think of them as kind of mystical foretellers of the future. However, the special talent of the prophets we encounter in scripture was their ability to describe with sometimes brutal accuracy the wrongs of their own day and call for repentance and renewal. 

 

For the most part, the prophets we encounter in scripture claimed no special gifts or talents. Last week we saw that the Prophet Ezekiel claimed that despite his own weakness or lack of ability, the Lord had called him to carry out a mission. In our first reading today, the Prophet Amos says much the same thing. He claims that he is not a prophet and that he does not even have the learning or background to be one.

 

I was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores,

The Lord took me from following the flock, and said to me,

Go, prophesy to my people Israel.

 

In other words, Amos was just a simple, ordinary man no different from anyone else.          

 

In today’s gospel we see Our Lord entrusting a bunch of simple, ordinary men with a mission. Today’s gospel reading from Mark picks up right where we left off last week. We recall that after performing many healings and miracles in a neighboring region, Jesus returned home only to meet a doubtful reception from his own people. He was led to say that a “prophet is not without honor except in his own country.”

 

Nevertheless, Jesus commissions the Apostles to embark on a mission in the same way as Ezekiel and Amos. They wouldn’t need book learning or years in a seminary. They wouldn’t need a lot of money or equipment. 

 

He instructed them to take nothing for the journey

But a walking stick—

No food, no sack, no money in their belts.  

 

His authority would be all they needed to perform the same works that He had done. So, without any special training or experience they set out to do His work. We are told that like the prophets of old they preached repentance, drove out many demons, and “anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.”

 

When we hear of these first Apostles, we must always put ourselves in their shoes or sandals. We speak of our bishops as being successors of the Apostles, but we are all successors of the Apostles in our own little way. But how are we to be apostles or prophets with our own limited time and abilities?

 

I knew a young widow he told me about all that she was doing to care for and raise her young daughter. It was truly admirable. Nevertheless, she wished that she had more time to devote to God’s work, or to spend more time in prayer and devotion. I think I did right to tell her that when she cared for her daughter, she was indeed doing God’s work, the work she had been chosen to do. Her prayers were the words she said to her daughter. So many times in the gospel Jesus directs our attention away from himself, and asks us to care for those entrusted to our care. His one commandment was to love one another.

 

In today’s second reading, St. Paul begins his letter to the Ephesians, the young Christian community in the city of Ephesus, with a long introduction that seems to indicate that they are all apostles. He writes,

 

In him you also, who have heard the word of truth,

the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,

which is the first installment of our inheritance

toward redemption as God’s possession, to the praise of his glory. 

 

Even though we are simple, ordinary people involved in the mundane tasks of life, these same mundane tasks have been elevated or consecrated through the sacrifice of Jesus and the sanctification of his Holy Spirit.

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Reading 1.  Amos 7: 12-15

Reading II. Ephesians 1: 3-14

Gospel. Mark 6: 7-13 (Jesus Summoned the Twelve)

A Prophet without Honor

                       14^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

                      B cycle

 

                     

In today’s first reading the prophet Ezekiel is warned that his mission will be difficult. Though he is being sent to his own people, the Israelites, he should not expect a warm welcome. 

 

Hard of face and obstinate of heart

Are they to whom I am sending you.

 

This passage from the Hebrew scriptures is obviously an introduction to our gospel reading. Today’s passage from Mark picks up right after the words we heard last week where Jesus had worked some miracles in a land with a mixed population of Jews and pagans. Even though he was not a native of this territory, his reputation had preceded him and crowds swarmed around him. A woman just had to touch his cloak to be healed, and he had even raised the young daughter of a synagogue official from her deathbed. In both cases it was faith that worked the miracle.

 

But today we read that Jesus returned to his own native land and rather than receiving a hero’s welcome the people who knew him could not believe. Even when the wisdom of the words that he spoke in the synagogue amazed them, they could not believe their ears.

 

How could he be so smart? They knew he was just a carpenter or the son of a carpenter. They knew his mother, Mary. Was she any different from any other Jewish mother? They knew his brothers and sisters. Scholars tell us not to take these words literally. The words brother and sister could mean just cousins or kinfolk. In any case, there was nothing special about any of his relatives. 

 

We are told that his neighbors took offense at Him leading Jesus to utter the famous reply.

 

A prophet is not without honor except in his native place

And among his own kin and in his own house. 

 

It is always good for us to put ourselves in the place of those mentioned in the gospels. Today we should put ourselves in the place of the hard hearted or hard headed Israelites of Ezekiel’s time, or the neighbors of Jesus who could not believe or understand.

 

Haven’t we all had the experience of underestimating someone that we knew very well? Aren’t we surprised sometimes to find out that a brother or sister, a son or daughter has done very well in their chosen profession? Has any of us had the experience of going to an awards banquet and discovering that someone we thought we knew was highly regarded by strangers? Sadly, don’t we all often fail to realize how gifted or talented our own husbands and wives might be? We all love to get recognition but it is so hard to give it. 

 

On the other hand, it is hard when we fail to receive recognition for what we have done or for who we are. From children to senior citizens we all want to get our just desserts. The gospel says that Jesus was amazed by the lack of faith of his hometown neighbors. We can understand because we are often ignored by those closest to us. It has often been said that if business men or women would treat their spouses with the same respect they treat their clients, their marriages would be much happier.

 

In today’s second reading St. Paul expresses a similar kind of disappointment. He knows that God has given him a great gift but that God has also humbled him so that he will not become puffed up.  He knows that he will not always succeed or get the recognition he desires but still he will carry on. It is better to trust in God than in yourself.

 

I am content with weaknesses, insults,

Hardships, persecutions and constraints,

For the sake of Christ,

For when I am weak, then I am strong.

 

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Reading 1.  Ezekiel 2: 2-5

Reading II. 2 Corinthians 12: 7-10

Gospel. Mark 6:1-6 (a prophet without honor)