18th Sunday of ordinary time

Here we are at the beginning of August and it will be no time until the schools go back at the start of September. Over the past months all of us have come through a lot journeying along with the COVID 19 pandemic. Sadly many people have lost much loved family members and as we get back to normality such as it is we remember all those who have been affected.

Our Gospel reading this weekend has as its focus Food that is food for the body that is bread and food for the soul that is Jesus  the Bread of life. Jesus tells the people that they are only following him because they have enjoyed the food that physically satisfies them; they should work, he says, for the food that endures that will bring them to eternal life. The one thing which earns this food is believing that Jesus is the one God has sent.

The Galileans promptly ask Jesus for a sign to aid their belief in him – a sign like the manna their fathers ate in the desert.  Jesus points out that it was God, not Moses, who supplied the manna, he compares himself to the God who now gives bread from heaven. Jesus declares that he himself is the bread of life, the bread come down from heaven. Whoever believes in him will never be hungry.  The promise that Jesus held out to the Galileans is one that is held out to us today. It is a promise fulfilled in the Eucharist. If there is one thing we all share it is the same hunger. We hunger for a love that does not disappoint; we hunger for a word that does not fade away; we hunger for bread that does not fail to satisfy. Yet there are so many people in our world who suffer from physical hunger as many do not even have a wee bit of bread to eat or water to drink.

Also there is a great spiritual hunger, there are many people out there who have lost their faith and there are also many people searching for faith who have yet to find it. I think that need to be the bread of life for all those who are out there who have lost the faith or those who are searching.  It means being the light of Christ showing that God the Father has sent Jesus from heaven to be our food, our strength, our hope, and our joy in living. Nothing else in life can surpass this Bread of Life given freely and freely accepted by those who choose to accept this great gift of God. 

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

This Sunday we celebrate the world day of prayer for Grandparents and elderly people. Our Grandparents and our older people are important. Without them the body of the Church lacks something. That is why it is necessary for them to have their rightful place within our Families and communities. It is crucial that we share in the lives of older people in the same way that the Lord, in giving us his Body and Blood, has made us sharers in his own. Today we pray in a special way for  those who are  grandparents or older people, may they accompany their  families with wisdom as they pass on the treasure of faith to the grandchildren and the younger generation

In the Gospel reading for this Sunday we hear the story of the feeding of the five thousand. The crowd is huge can you imagine five thousand people and all of them are hungry: for physical food in a deserted place and hungry for still more. They are hungry to be acknowledged, to feel counted and recognized. Like those of us gathered for Eucharist each Sunday, they are also hungry for what Jesus had to say about God .

They hunger to know that God is on their side, when the rest of the world considers them insignificant.  How can their need to feel important, and their hunger to know God be filled? In their Roman- occupied world they are slaves. In their religious world, a long way from the seat of their faith in Jerusalem and the religious elite, these Galileans were considered next to pagans; ignorant and a long way from God when in truth they were nearer to God than many of the so called righteous people of the day much the same as it is today. There is some food there, but almost nothing in the light of the numbers who are hungry. In this story the food of the poor barley bread counts and it is not an insignificant gift. It’s given by a boy, it’s all he has, and he makes it available. We tend to measure the size of any problem that may arise and then back away, shrugging our shoulders, “What can I do about such a big problem?” Well we in simple terms have to face the problems head on like the boy in this Gospel it is better to do something about the situation we are in than nothing at all.

The life implication of this gospel is simple: Jesus wants to work the miracle of feeding a huge number of people who are hungry; but the miracle will not happen without someone to provide five barley loaves and two fish and the young man did exactly that. The end of this passage is important: “and all ate and were satisfied. And they took up what was left over, twelve baskets of broken pieces”. Jesus asked the disciples to ensure that nothing was wasted: nothing thrown out!   The people in this story realize that Jesus had something to offer them in the deserted and lonely places in their lives. Jesus wasn’t just filling their stomachs he was also nourishing their souls. They weren’t rich, famous, educated or powerful; they were the afflicted and marginalized people that Jesus went out of his way to seek out.  Life may have passed them by, but god through Jesus didn’t.  He took note of them, and they in turn saw in him a place to be nourished, a place where deep  spiritual and physical hungers and longings would be fulfilled. The Gospel account of the loaves proclaims who Jesus is and gives us  food for our journey that is life with all its ups and downs with all its happy and sad times..

This Gospel also proclaims who we are as people who are hungry for what Jesus the bread of life has to say to us about God.  Are we prepared to open our ears and listen to the message of Jesus in the Gospel so that we can pass that message on in what we say and do in our lives ?

16th Sunday in ordinary time

This Sunday in our Gospel story we listen to Jesus as he tells the apostles ‘You must come away all by yourselves and rest for a while’. He first planned to give his Apostles a well-earned rest. They had worked hard while out on their mission and a few days rest would restore their lost energy. He himself, too, must have been hard pressed, preaching and dealing with the crowds. In the absence of the Apostles he had no one to help him he too needed a rest. He, therefore, planned that he and they should go to a quiet corner of the Sea of Galilee where there was no village and where they would not be disturbed. As we all know sometimes the best laid plans go astray as the people got to the quiet spot first. He could have sent them away, but again his compassion for those around him took  over. Seeing these simple people of Galilee so anxious to hear about God he let them stay and began to preach the good news of forgiveness and hope to them.

Jesus cares for us and all those needing rest and spiritual nourishment as he did his apostles and crowd in our Gospel story for this Sunday! We have only to listen to Jesus speaking within our hearts to hear where we will find him. In addition to that blessing, we all know someone in our midst who mirrors the Lord’s unselfish care for others. Often we are the recipient of that care and attention. We might take those people for granted whether they be in our family, community, work place or parish. The widespread problems of so many are symptoms of deep unsatisfied longings to be loved and to love. Can we be a little more caring towards the lost and lonely people we know? And will we hear Jesus as he says to us: ‘I was a stranger and you made me welcome, lacking clothes and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, in prison and you came to see me? Jesus clearly identified himself with people in physical, emotional and spiritual need. To meet them is to meet him especially these days where so many have been affected by the COVID19 pandemic.

Jesus has the answers to our questions; and they all come down to living a humble life in harmony with God. And he not only tells us but shows us the way. He talks the talk as he speaks to us but he also walks the walk with us. And this walk takes him to Jerusalem and up the hill to Golgotha where he gave his life for us. Jesus invites us to walk with him as we listen to his teaching and then at the end of the walk to rise to new life with him. No wonder they wanted to hear more.  So the call to us this weekend is that we should come apart and rest for a while and as we rest we should recharge our spiritual batteries as we  listen to Jesus and try to follow what he teaches us today.

15th Sunday of Ordinary Time

This Sunday our Gospel reading about Mission. Jesus summons the twelve apostles and sends them in twos on a missionary journey.  The chosen followers of Jesus have to carry the word of God as a challenge to others wherever the find people to listen. They are not to rely on their own resources but on the authority that has been given to them by Jesus and the hospitality that will be offered to them. With no bread and no money, they have to depend on the kindness of others: that vulnerability makes their message their real resource. If they have bread to eat, it means that people are not only hospitable to them but to the word they preach. If they are not accepted, they have no option but to move on. And when a town rejects their message, the apostles are to shake the dust from their feet a symbolic act performed by strict Jews returning to Palestine after journeying abroad. Jesus and the Twelve Apostles preached that God would adopt humanity, making its members which include you and me “sons” and “daughters” of the Father This was Good News then just as it is now!  We need to be like the twelve who were sent out with the message of Jesus but with one difference we need to seek out those who do not want to hear the message instead of shaking the dust off our feet we really need to let our feet get dirty.  

We have to have carry the word of God as a challenge to others and as we carry gods word  to others it should also be a challenge to us in our time and place right where we are. We, like the first disciples, are inadequate for the task; yet Christ’s mission for God’s kingdom is given to us in order to make it a reality in our lives and the lives of those who live around us. If we labor under the illusion that we can bring about God’s reign on our own, we will not be advancing God’s kingdom on earth.  Paul refers to his experience of preaching the gospel as foolishness. He relishes saying “we are fools for Christ’s sake. Because he understands that it is because of his weakness that the power of Christ can dwell in him. If we understand our own weaknesses we too can be witnesses with the power of Jesus dwelling within us. The crucial point in the Gospel is that by doing things Jesus’ way the Apostles get close to the people, they understand their concerns and they share their life. There is no better way of communicating the love of God to the people around us than sharing the concerns of others and getting close to the people of God where they are in their faith and life Journeys. Let us be fools for Christ like St. Paul as we remember that it is through our weakness that the power of Christ can dwell in us and work through us for other people.

Are we willing to advance his gospel project by our words and deeds in the world? Will we “travel light,” trusting in the Lord’s presence to guide us Or will we wipe the dirt of our feet as we leave?

14th Sunday of Ordinary Time

This Sundays  Gospel sees Jesus going back to his roots in Nazareth. This is not a social visit: like other towns in Galilee, Nazareth and its people have to hear the Good News of the kingdom. When Jesus teaches in the local synagogue, many of the townspeople are astonished at the performance. They wonder at the origin of Jesus’ teaching and the nature of his wisdom, as well as the miracles that are done through him. From the unanswered questions about Jesus’ wisdom, the neighbours move to more familiar territory and focus on what they do know about Jesus. Whatever their wonder, they are not going to allow the wisdom of Jesus  to interfere with their memories of him. Prior to this section in Mark’s gospel, Jesus has been doing some extraordinary things. His baptism by John in the river Jordan was accompanied by an affirming voice of the Father from the heavens, “You are my beloved Son. On you my favor rests.”

After his desert testing Jesus called his first disciples, cured the man in the synagogue with the unclean spirit and the paralytic in Capernaum; expelled the legion of devils from the Gerasene man, you may remember last week in our Gospel Reading Jesus raised the daughter of Jairus, and cured the woman with hemorrhage, Jesus is doing wonderful things as he proclaims, in word and deed, the coming of the reign of God. Though he did all the wonderful things the people still had little faith which also seems to be the case these days. The people wanted the powerful signs of God’s final coming with a strong right arm to rescue them. But when Jesus spoke about the signs of the kingdom’s presence, he spoke of scattered seeds and, to emphasize the kingdoms small beginnings, he compared it to a mustard seed, “the smallest of all of the seeds of the earth” Where was God’s show of power and mighty arm in a tiny mustard seed? Mark sums up their reaction, “And they took offense at him.” And so it is today as many take offense at the values of Christianity in our world. A world which in many respects is so faithless with many  people taking offense at Jesus and his teaching.

You only have to look at the current debate about the Eucharist in the USA to or the state of the church in Germany to see this. Jesus revealed God’s presence to the people of Nazareth as a different kind of power: the power used only to help others, not ourselves; a gentle power that does not force or coerce people to do our will; the power of compassion and gentleness, when others are expecting force. All of us know from our own experience that when we admit our failures and limitations, that exercise in honesty can mark the beginning of a new understanding. If our Lord and God can take failure in his stride, we might even end up boasting about God’s fantastic message! What is the message of the wisdom of Jesus? Jesus message is really about using whatever power that we might have in a positive good way to help others and the greater our weakness the more powerful we will be that is powerful with the power of compassion and gentleness that is the power of God that our world needs more today than ever before.