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Friday 19 July 2024

16th Sunday Year B, 2024

 

(Jeremiah 23:1-6; Ephesians 2:13-18; Mark 6:30-34)

Dear People of God, last week in our readings, Jesus had sent out the Twelve on a mission, and told them that, if any town or village refused to hear them, they should shake the dust of that place from off their feet, in testimony against it.  Well, this week we are told  that, on their return to Jesus:

 Told Him all they had done and taught.  And He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going  and they had no leisure even to eat.   And they went away in the boat.  

There we have a lovely example of Jesus’ solicitous care for His Apostles: ‘Come, let us go to some “deserted place” where we will be alone and you will be able to find refreshment for your souls, light and understanding for your minds, peace and joy for your hearts.’ 

It was necessary for the Apostles to return to Jesus not only to learn more from Him but also to be with Him alone, in order to refresh their ‘Jesus -contact’, that they might be able to continue to proclaim Him alone: love of Him, knowledge of His teaching, in all their preaching and teaching.  Otherwise, they could so easily descend to preaching either themselves or whatever people might want to hear: before ultimately adopting the worldly attitudes and aspirations of those to whom they had originally been sent as guides in the ways of Jesus, thereby meriting a share the condemnation of the pastors mentioned in our first reading:

You have scattered My flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to  them.  Behold I will attend to you for your evil deeds, says the Lord.  

“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture” declares the LORD!”

These words of Jeremiah, People of God -- chosen by God’s providence and the abiding wisdom of Mother Church -- are, obviously, of the utmost importance for our modern society, for they tell of a “scattered flock”.  Look around you today, People of God, and see how many of Jesus’ former Catholic flock are  now scattered, thanks to the solicitations of blatant evil encouraged in modern society.  But Jeremiah went on much further and used words referring no longer to the people falling off, but as pseudo-innocents, having been driven away” by their leaders --  prophets and priests of those times -- their teachers of God’s Law and  guides for right living for all faithful Jewish members of God’s Chosen People.

All that is part of our history, for our Christian roots are soaked in Jewish, Israelite, religious experience, indeed they go even further back in historical knowledge  to God’s very first P/personal dealings with man, that is with  Abraham our father in faith.   And that is why Jesus’ words to us this day have a resonance of thousands of years which  must be heard to fully appreciate  Jesus’ own words of ultimate salvation.          

I am the bread of life.  Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.  (John 6:48-50)

Jesus alone is the bread of life; and He comes to us in two ways:  through His Word, and in His Eucharist.

He answered and said, "It is written, ‘man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'"   (Matthew 4:4)

I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.  And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh. (John 6: 51)

That spiritual fulness of bread -- the Word of God and the Eucharist -- is our ultimate intention when we pray for to our heavenly Father every day:

            Give us this day our daily bread.

What then if God’s People, coming to Church on a Sunday, are not given the bread God Himself is calling them into His presence to receive?  That is the real meaning of those words:

You have scattered My flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to  them.  Behold I will attend to you for your evil deeds, says the Lord.  

That type of thing is done when, instead of the Gospel message and the Church’s teaching, political correctness is preached, when current interests are allowed to obscure or take precedence over from Catholic teaching, or when the sins of the people are passed over in silence or even excused in order to avoid trouble or court popularity (Mark 7:7-9):   

This people honours Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.  In vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments (traditions) of men.     

In this regard we should remember that, today, such ‘clinging to human tradition’ does  not refer to the traditional teaching of Mother Church, the authentic spirit of Christianity over the ages struggling, suffering, and dying, to proclaim the Gospel in a pagan world,  nor to the teaching of acclaimed saints and doctors of Mother  Church who dedicated their whole lives to the proclamation of the truth of Jesus --  but to modern, glib and oh-so-smooth popular words, attitudes, and practices designed to adapt Jesus and His Good News in ways that would facilitate easier relationship with practitioners of evil and allow ample opportunities for ‘sample-tasting’ of the delights offered by the world.

To continue with our Gospel passage, we are told that the people followed Jesus and His Apostles, with the result that:

When Jesus disembarked and saw the vast crowd, His heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd, and He began to teach them many things.

Do please, People of God, notice the form Jesus’ compassion took:

He began to teach them many things.          

That is what must happen today in our society.  Jesus alone can heal us (Mt. 11:28- 30):

Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.   For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.

Therefore, Jesus has to be preached, His teaching has to be given, in season and out of season.  However, this is far too often done only partially when, for example, such words as those “Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” are repeatedly acknowledged and commented on because they are beautiful words, recognized and admired by all; but Jesus’ subsequent words: “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me”, may be heard, but are not often praised or commented on.  There, so-called teachers stop short because they want to present religion and faith – and, of course, themselves -- in a popular light.  Likewise, there are many ‘hearers’ who also want to stop short there, because they do not want to hear talk of a yoke of any sort, let alone feel obliged to take one up.  And so, essential Catholic teaching can be so easily omitted, whilst the seeds of consolation such as those words “Come to Me all you who labour” are carelessly thrown on the soil of souls already overgrown with worldly weeds.  The result is that the word of God is choked, and a pseudo-religiosity takes its place :  “God is good, He rejects none ;  there is no need to go to Church to find Him, to be accepted by Him ;  there is no need for sacraments, especially confession, just say an occasional prayer if you have time and God’s great goodness will do the rest for you”  There, indeed, you have worldly, even devilish, weeds that choke Catholic spiritual life.

St. Paul told us in the second reading that Jesus:

Reconciled us with God through the cross (that is the yoke) and He came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near (that is the teaching), (and) through Him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.

Through Jesus -- the Jesus Who died on the Cross and Whose yoke we must take upon ourselves, a yoke which He will make light for us -- through that Jesus we have access to the Father, in the Spirit Who brings to our mind all that Jesus taught and Who enables us to keep His commandments.  Through that Jesus alone do we have access to the Father. 

People of God, be innocent not foolish; be wisely ignorant of the ways of the world and truly wise in the ways of God; try to do what Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, advises us: 

Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. (Matthew 7:13)

On their return from proclaiming the Good News Jesus called the apostles aside from the crowd to a desert place where they could be alone with Him.  After a week of Christian witness in the world He still calls His disciples aside – apart from the world -- to be with Him, every Sunday at Holy Mass.  Like the apostles in our Gospel passage, we are meant to be one with Jesus in our Sunday gathering.  ‘One with Him’ can then mean two things: all one in faith before Him as living members of His Mystical Body; and all – individually and personally -- alone with Him in the devout attention of our minds and the pious love of our hearts.

That Church-oneness-of-faith in Jesus realized at Sunday Mass is proclaimed by the beloved disciple John when he says:

Whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world -- our faith.  Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?            (1 John 5:4-5)