St Mark's Gospel is the shortest of the four Gospels. So we needed to fill in some weeks to make it all the way through the long season of Ordinary Time. And since St John's Gospel doesn't have its own year (we usually read through it during the intense liturgical seasons like Christmas and Easter), this created a perfect opportunity to spend a few weeks to go through this crucial chapter. And so, for the next four weeks, we will have a chance to reflect on the lessons it contains.
John Chapter 6 is all about the Eucharist, and the Eucharist, protecting, celebrating, and administering it, is the central responsibility of the Catholic priesthood.
In today's miraculous multiplication of the loaves, Jesus teaches us two critical things about this most Blessed Sacrament.
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The first critical thing is that it was his idea.
Some critics of the Catholic Church argue that the central role of the Eucharist in Church life was a later invention. They say that as Church bureaucracy grew through the centuries, it invented devotion to the Eucharist as a way to give more power to the priests. It is true that our understanding of the meaning of the Eucharist has increased as the centuries have passed. And it is true that practices like adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and solemn benediction were developed only as the centuries moved along. But it is not true that the fact of the Eucharist itself was a "later invention."
It was Christ's own idea.
This will become clearer and clearer as we make our way through Chapter 6 of St John's Gospel - in fact, you may want to read through the whole chapter at home today, looking for clues that the Eucharist was the Lord's idea; you'll find plenty.
But even before he starts talking about the Eucharist, we can see him preparing for it. Notice, for example, how closely this multiplication of the loaves resembles the Mass, which is the perpetual celebration of the Eucharist.
First of all, St John tells us that "the Jewish feast of the Passover was near," and we know that on the feast of Passover, during the Last Supper, Jesus instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist. Then St John explains that a large crowd was gathering around Jesus, because they had seen his signs of healing. Well, only baptized Catholics can receive the Eucharist, because they have been previously freed from original sin by the sacrament of baptism, a sign of spiritual healing. And then some people from the crowd bring a few offerings to Jesus - the loaves and fish, just like our offertory after the Creed. And what did Jesus do? He "gave thanks" and then "distributed" the food. This mirrors perfectly the second half of Mass. In the Eucharistic prayer the priest gives thanks to God on behalf of the congregation, and then he distributes Holy Communion. And to top it all off, St John specifies that there were basketfuls of bread and fish leftover, and Jesus instructed his apostles to gather them together and preserve them. That's exactly what we do with the hosts that remain after Communion; we gather them in the ciboria and reserve them in the tabernacle.
All of this is no accident.
Jesus is not just giving the crowds a free lunch to show them God's generosity and concern; he is also getting them ready to understand his coming discourse about the Eucharist.
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The second critical thing that today's Gospel tells us about the Eucharist is that we really need it. The crowds following Jesus had no food. And the disciples had no money to buy food. The five loaves and two fish were simply not enough to do the job. The apostles were at the end of their rope; they were helpless; they could do nothing to satisfy the needs of the people.
Some skeptics argue that actually the people had plenty of food, but they didn't want to share it. And so, the critics say, the real miracle is that somehow Jesus, by sharing what he had, convinced them all to do the same thing. But to reading this passage, and the parallel passages in the other Gospels, in that way is to do violence to the Bible - it's distorting the words of the text, not interpreting them.
The fact that Jesus really did multiply the bread is emphasized by today's First Reading, where the prophet Elisha performed a similar miracle for a hundred people.
Only the power of God was sufficient to meet the needs described by these passages of the Bible. It reminds us of another Old Testament passage where God's power had to intervene: when he sent the Israelites manna in the desert. That too was a foreshadowing of the Eucharist, the true bread from heaven, as next week's Gospel passage will remind us. If Jesus hadn't intervened with his miracle, those people would have gone hungry; they needed bread, and only Jesus could give it to them.
The same thing goes for us today.
To live the lives of wisdom, courage, hope, faith, and self-giving that we are called to live, in a sin-infected culture that is like a desert, void of all those virtues, we need God's help.
And he gives it to us, by feeding us with his very own wisdom, faith, courage and strength, through the Eucharist.
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Giving us the Eucharist, the supernatural nourishment of Christ's own body and blood, was God's idea. And he came up with this idea because he looked out at us, saw the depths of our hearts, and knew that we needed his help, his love, his grace.
Every Mass is a celebration of this great gift of the Eucharist.
As we continue with this Mass, let's make an effort to live it deeply.
And we can live it deeply, by paying attention to the sacred words of the liturgy, by stirring up sentiments of gratitude and faith in our hearts, and by remembering that we are not alone, that through this Mass we are connected to Catholics throughout the world and throughout history who have gathered around the same altar and received the same Holy Communion, obeying our Lords' command: "Do this in remembrance of me."
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Seventeenth Ordinary Sunday
Started by cappie, Jul 26 2012 01:54 PM
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cappie
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Posted 29 July 2012 - 09:02 PM
From the Congratio Pro Clericus
This Sunday’s liturgy interrupts the reading of St Mark’s Gospel to start reading chapter 6 of St John’s Gospel which contains the multiplication of the bread and fishes and the “Bread of Life” discourse that will accompany us for the next six weeks.
By continuously interweaving signs and illusions, St John highlights the significance of Christ’s presence which is a guarantee of salvation. The gift of bread is an unsurpassable sign of Christ’s own presence and of the compassion that the Lord feels for the crowd that remained alone like a “sheep without a shepherd” (XVI Sunday O.T). It is Christ’s compassion that generates the bread, the gift that Jesus makes of Himself for the life of the world.
God so loved man that He had the audacity to become man Himself in order to realise His plan of salvation. “Where can we buy bread?” Jesus’ question to Philip isn’t posed as a practical question (to find bread to eat), but tries to arouse all the trust that the Apostle can and must have towards His Lord.
“Where” indicates the origin of things, their nature, where things come from. It is just like Nicodemus who doesn’t know where the wind blows (Jn3:8), or the Samaritan woman who doesn’t know where the water comes from (4:11) or the head waiter who doesn’t know where the good wine came from (2:9).
Philip and the others really need very little – it is enough to have a profound look towards the man who is looking at the crowd whilst they in turn look to Him. It would be enough to say “only you can give them something to eat to satiate their hunger!”
Philip is preoccupied with the disproportional calculation to resolve the problem in that instant. It distracts him from that extraordinary Presence – the only response possible: Jesus. Distraction is a sin that takes away God’s power to solve all our difficulties. It is enough to recognise that it is Christ who will enable us to understand “where to find the bread.”
How often does this sin reoccur before the Eucharist? The boy’s offering seems inadequate although it is a significant biblical call (Elisha’s barley loaves (2Kings 4:42-44); the sum of the 5 loaves and 2 fish is the number of the days of creation….). The offering is apparently not enough. Man always requires more. However, God’s heart is generous enough to accept the little that we offer in order to give us superabundance. This is Providence!
“When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, "Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.” Jesus command itself contains a reminder of the preciousness of the bread that has fed the crowd. The gathering of the left over fragments of bread is an operation that requires great care and especially the recognition of the value of the food. These fragments are the bodily image of the fact that every grace granted by the Lord isn’t commensurate with man’s ability but rather it immeasurably exceeds it.
Those 12 baskets of left over bread become the sign of the great abundance that comes from Divine Grace, the work of God in our lives.
“O God, protector of those who hope in you, without whom nothing has firm foundations, nothing is holy.” (Collect) May Our Lady, Virgin of heaven, in whose womb every abundance has been poured out make this certainty surface on our lips and on our heart!
Seventeenth Sunday In Ordinary Time – Year B
This Sunday’s liturgy interrupts the reading of St Mark’s Gospel to start reading chapter 6 of St John’s Gospel which contains the multiplication of the bread and fishes and the “Bread of Life” discourse that will accompany us for the next six weeks.
By continuously interweaving signs and illusions, St John highlights the significance of Christ’s presence which is a guarantee of salvation. The gift of bread is an unsurpassable sign of Christ’s own presence and of the compassion that the Lord feels for the crowd that remained alone like a “sheep without a shepherd” (XVI Sunday O.T). It is Christ’s compassion that generates the bread, the gift that Jesus makes of Himself for the life of the world.
God so loved man that He had the audacity to become man Himself in order to realise His plan of salvation. “Where can we buy bread?” Jesus’ question to Philip isn’t posed as a practical question (to find bread to eat), but tries to arouse all the trust that the Apostle can and must have towards His Lord.
“Where” indicates the origin of things, their nature, where things come from. It is just like Nicodemus who doesn’t know where the wind blows (Jn3:8), or the Samaritan woman who doesn’t know where the water comes from (4:11) or the head waiter who doesn’t know where the good wine came from (2:9).
Philip and the others really need very little – it is enough to have a profound look towards the man who is looking at the crowd whilst they in turn look to Him. It would be enough to say “only you can give them something to eat to satiate their hunger!”
Philip is preoccupied with the disproportional calculation to resolve the problem in that instant. It distracts him from that extraordinary Presence – the only response possible: Jesus. Distraction is a sin that takes away God’s power to solve all our difficulties. It is enough to recognise that it is Christ who will enable us to understand “where to find the bread.”
How often does this sin reoccur before the Eucharist? The boy’s offering seems inadequate although it is a significant biblical call (Elisha’s barley loaves (2Kings 4:42-44); the sum of the 5 loaves and 2 fish is the number of the days of creation….). The offering is apparently not enough. Man always requires more. However, God’s heart is generous enough to accept the little that we offer in order to give us superabundance. This is Providence!
“When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, "Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.” Jesus command itself contains a reminder of the preciousness of the bread that has fed the crowd. The gathering of the left over fragments of bread is an operation that requires great care and especially the recognition of the value of the food. These fragments are the bodily image of the fact that every grace granted by the Lord isn’t commensurate with man’s ability but rather it immeasurably exceeds it.
Those 12 baskets of left over bread become the sign of the great abundance that comes from Divine Grace, the work of God in our lives.
“O God, protector of those who hope in you, without whom nothing has firm foundations, nothing is holy.” (Collect) May Our Lady, Virgin of heaven, in whose womb every abundance has been poured out make this certainty surface on our lips and on our heart!
