17th Sunday Year B, 2024

 

(2^nd Kings 4:42-44; Ephesians 4:1-6; John 6:1-15)

Jesus went with His disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. On the way He asked His disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”   And they told Him, “John the Baptist, and others say Elijah, and others, one of the prophets.”   

And so, dear People of God, a considerable number of pious Jews of Jesus’ time were expecting the promised Messiah to appear as one of the prophets of Israel.  Therefore, when in today’s Gospel reading,  Jesus told His disciples to have the people sit down and prepare for a meal, He undoubtedly remembered the miracle performed by the prophet Elishah of which you heard in our first reading, when the prophet miraculously fed one hundred people using 20 best barley loaves saying:

            Thus says the Lord, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’

Take special note of Jesus, however, because He is no mere restored prophet, He is one much greater than that!  He, for example, does not invoke ‘the Lord’ as did Elishah, He simply told His disciples to make the people sit down, gave thanks for the food available, as was customary for all pious Jews, and His will was directly accomplished!

He was feeding over five thousand people, using only one boy’s measure of food -- given most probably by his mother on his setting out from home to follow the new Galilean prophet called Jesus -- a little parcel containing just five pieces of bread and two little fish --  and He said nothing!!

Jesus deliberately played down the miraculous aspect of that feeding because He knew that the people were getting too excited about Himself and the renown His miracles had already won for Him; moreover, some of those who had just been fed, having seen what Jesus had just done, were wanting, planning, to seize Him immediately and make Him king!!  We, however, are just told that:

            Jesus withdrew again to the mountain …. by Himself !!!

Dear People of God, Jesus loved His people, was concerned about their needs, but He did not want to be used by excited followers for their own purposes … make Him king as they then wanted.

Jesus wanted to be known, loved, and obeyed in the calm strength and deep intensity of forthcoming Christian faith and humble, self-less, commitment.   

Looking still more closely at the difference between Our Lord’s miracle and that of the prophet Elisha again, we see that whereas Elisha multiplied bread, Jesus multiplied loaves and fish… what does that difference help us to understand about Jesus?  In what way does it instruct us about the Kingdom of God that He was introducing?

Bread, of course, reminds us of the word of God:

Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.  (Matthew 4:4)

Fish, however, evoked the end days for which that other great prophet Ezekiel (47:7-10) predicted that a stream would flow from the Temple in Jerusalem and become a river that would purify even the Dead Sea:

The Lord God said to me, “This water flows towards the eastern region down upon the Arabah, and goes down into the Arabah, and enters the sea; when the water flows into the sea, the water will become fresh.  Wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish.  For this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh.  Its fish will be of very many kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea.

Note, note most carefully dear friends in Christ, in the Kingdom of God being introduced by Jesus, He Himself, JESUS, is the new and only Temple!! And that water flowing from the Temple envisioned by the prophet Ezekiel in Jerusalem was a God-given, partially understood, vision of the water soon to be seen flowing from the pierced side of the Christ on the Cross in His sublime act of saving love and salvation on Calvary!

The multitude of fish-of-all-kinds foretold by the prophet foreshadowed, and would be realized in, the stream of sanctifying and purifying grace, that GIFT of Jesus, His most Holy Spirit, and the many, many, many wonderful gifts to be bestowed on Jesus’ saintly Catholic followers in the times of Mother Church soon to come.

Ultimately the Greek word for ‘fish’ in the New Testament became an acronym among the early Christians -- ICHTHYS -- for the ancient creed: ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour’.

Elisha, as a prophet of God multiplied bread; Jesus, being far more than a  prophet,  multiplied bread, symbol of God’s word, and He also multiplied fish, being a present fulfilment of God’s promises to the remaining faithful few Israel, and a treasury of help for all His followers who would become members of His Body, the Catholic Church, bringing to the fulness of revelation that the Word of God is ultimately the very Person of Jesus the Christ, become man – born of the Spirit from Mary the Jewish Virgin of Nazareth -- for the salvation of all mankind.

Jesus symbolically left His Apostles 12 baskets’ full of food, that is, a plenitude of food for the new Israel to be founded on faith in Jesus by the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus in the power of the Spirit of Jesus.  This nourishment for God’s Christian People, looks like bread and wine, because it is to be food for His disciples; but it is not like ordinary food which we eat and, by digesting, change into our own bodily substance, since the food that Jesus gives is intended to gradually change the recipient into a member of the Body of Christ living by the Spirit of Christ.

Saint Paul told us in the second reading that, for the disciples of Jesus, on their way, not to the holy mountain, but to their heavenly home:

There is one body and one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all.

Notice those words: “there is one body and one Spirit”.  “One body” refers to the Church as the Body of Christ, but it can also be related to the one Body, the one food, for all those who are living members of the Church which is Mystical Body of Christ. “There is one Body and one Spirit” because the Body, the Eucharistic Presence of Christ, is given so that we might be endowed -- every one according to his or her measure -- with the one Holy Spirit of Jesus, in Whose power alone it is that each of us will be enabled to walk towards the mountain of the God and find our heavenly home there.

That is why it is so important for good Catholics to appreciate the real nature of the Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist: He is there as food for the way – to sustain those who are on the way.   And to those on the way to what is beyond their imagining and largely hidden in the future, He says, ‘You have My promises, so’:

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  (Matthew 7:7-9)

That is what Jesus expects from all ‘good’ Catholics, that we ask with unshakeable trust, seek with patience and perseverance -- unashamedly persistent in our knocking -- because a true Catholic is one who is spiritually alive, that is, one constantly searching for Jesus, and in Him -- by His Spirit -- for the Father.  

Dear People of God, the humble appearances of our Eucharistic Food should help us appreciate that we can best show our love and appreciation of Jesus in the Eucharist by walking humbly and perseveringly along that journey whither He is calling us.  It is in and through this simple Eucharistic food-for-the-way that Jesus communicates to us His Spirit so that He, the Spirit, abiding in us and working with us, might enable us to progress along the way of Jesus which ultimately leads to the glorious Supper of the Lamb in that heavenly home which is the Father’s house:

In My Father's house are many rooms.  If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you. (John 14:2)

Jesus does not ask great actions to be seen by men from those who eat and drink such simple food, but He does expect what the angels rejoice to see: an ever deeper, more humble and grateful confidence and peace – spiritual joy -- in the hearts and minds of those aware of and responsive to the love of Jesus knocking gently at the door of their conscience; and they themselves -- like ever new-born children -- forming those initially stumbling, but growing ever more sure and secure words                        

Come, Lord Jesus, come!

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)

15th Sunday Year B, 2024

 

(Amos 7:12-15; Ephesians 1:3-10; Mark 6:7-13)

This commission by the Lord Jesus for His Twelve Apostles had two purposes: He Himself was God’s promised Saviour, and this proximity of Israel’s salvation had to be proclaimed both immediately and emphatically to God’s Chosen People; and, corresponding  to God’s fulfilment of His promise, the covenanted People themselves had to show authentic repentance for their sins against God’s Law.  At the same time, the apostles were also being prepared for the commission Jesus would give them after His Resurrection, a commission to preach His Good News to all mankind.

Let us look at this preparation of the Apostles.  Above all they needed to gain confidence in the Lord Who was sending them out on their first mission, because this mission to the Jewish people would be much easier than the one to come, which He would  direct to the relatively sophisticated pagans of the Roman Empire, and then to the ignorance and violence of the largely uncivilized world beyond.

Jesus, however, apparently made this original mission to the People of Israel more difficult for His Apostles by His injunction:

To take nothing for the journey except a staff -- no bag, no bread, no copper in their money belts -- but to wear sandals, and not to put on two tunics.

However, on their return, when Jesus asked them (Luke 22:35):

I sent you out without money bag, knapsack, and sandals, did you lack anything?"  They said, "Nothing."

It was evident that their experience on this first mission to the People of Israel had been such as to give them confidence that the Lord would be with them in all their future endeavours for the glory of His name among the nations.

Today the Catholic Church continues the mission of the Apostles, and the work required of her is still the same: a sublimely holy work to be done in the name and for love of the Lord Jesus, trusting in His Gift of the  Holy Spirit; a work for the fulfilment of His Father’s plan for the salvation of mankind.  However, her mission is becoming less widely  focussed on foreign nations, because ‘home nations’, where the faith has been long known and was once loved, are now returning to sin being blatantly practiced for physical self-satisfaction,  and for ‘soul-secret’ pride, both social and personal.

The response of men and women of our times and indeed, of all times, can be set out as Jesus put it before the Twelve.  First of all, we might note that, according to St. Luke (10:3), Jesus warned them that He was sending them out:

As lambs among wolves.

People of God, there is something there which modern Catholic people should be most clearly and humbly aware of, namely, that for Jesus -- and He certainly wanted His disciples to have the same attitude as Himself -- those who received the Apostles sent in His name were the ones receiving a blessing, and they were the ones who should, ultimately be most truly grateful. 

This appreciation is confirmed for us when Jesus goes on to tell His Apostles:

Whoever will not receive you or hear you, when you depart from there, shake off the dust under your feet as a testimony against them.      

Such a symbolic gesture of shaking off the dust from their feet in testimony against that place and the people living there would serve as an indication that the ‘ban of the Lord’ was resting upon that place.

In the legislation of the book of Deuteronomy, the people of Israel were instructed (13:17):

Nothing from that which is put under the ban shall cling to your hand.

The Rabbis’ teaching explained that anything of this sort, clinging to a person, was metaphorically called “the dust”: for example, “the dust of an evil tongue”, “the dust of usury”.  With such a background we can understand the significance and awesome threat implied in the Lord’s command to His Apostles:

            Shake off the dust under your feet as a testimony against them.

Who would, however, be so foolish as to incur the ban of the Lord?

That, of course, our first reading taken from the book of the prophet Amos showed us;

Listen to Amos speaking (3:15) in the name of the Lord of others in the Northern Kingdom:

I will destroy the winter house along with the summer house; the houses of ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall have an end.  

Obviously, prominent Israelites of the Northern Kingdom ignored the word of the Lord because they were engrossed with their enjoyment of the ‘dolce vita’: winter and summer houses as splendid as if they were made all of ivory; and just listen how they lived it up!

Woe to you who lie on beds of ivory, stretch out on your couches, eat lambs from the flock and calves from the midst of the stall; who sing idly to the sound of stringed instruments, and invent for yourselves musical instruments like David; who drink wine from bowls, and anoint yourselves with the best ointments, but are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.  (Amos 6:4-7)

People of God, you know very well that there are many so-called Catholics and Christians in our modern and prosperous Western society who, in like manner, are relatively replete with – and wholeheartedly delight in -- possessions and pleasures, power and prestige; and, though being ‘believers’ by reputation, they have no concern for the well-being of Mother Church.  Anxiously seeking the approval of men in all things, they have no confidence or trust in the Word of the Lord.  Will the ‘ban’ of the Lord be on them?  Was it on the luxurious Israelites in Samaria?   Hear the prophet’s words:

(They) are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph, therefore they shall now go captive as the first of the captives, and those who recline at banquets shall be removed. (6:6-7)

That, People of God, is the background to Our Lord’s words to His Apostles:

Whoever will not receive you nor hear you, when you depart from there, shake off the dust under your feet as a testimony against them.

Oh! dear People of God, compare Our Lord’s directions for those ministering His grace to the lost sheep of Israel with some prescriptions in parts of Mother Church today which almost beg people to come to church, to receive the Eucharist and other sacraments – notably baptism and confession – as it were at bargain prices (!) or even no cost at all (!!), traditional requirements of holiness being watered down or washed away, supposedly to demonstrate modern love!  Love of a sort indeed, but not Jesus’ love; rather is it that human emotionalism which imitates and would destroy true spiritual devotion, seeking neither Gospel fidelity nor Christian charity, but social acceptance and popular approval above all!

But what are the promises of the Lord?  What are the blessings He wants to bestow on us; what are the blessings reserved in heaven for those who embrace His Gospel and, by His Spirit, live through love in and for Him?  Listen to our second reading again:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins; in Him we have obtained an inheritance.  In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in Whom -- having believed -- you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, Who is the guarantee of our inheritance to the praise of His glory.  

Elsewhere Paul -- finding himself quite unable to express the wonder of our calling and the blessings that await us -- simply contents himself with quoting the Old Testament prophet Isaiah:

Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, may those promises be fulfilled, those blessings be bestowed, upon you who are now listening to the Word of the God with faith and who will later go out from this gathering enriched with Jesus’ grace to enable you to seriously try to live your daily lives with authentic Catholic love and devotion.