One of the questions I have frequently heard from
parishioners is how priests come up with our homilies. Sometimes I have heard a complaint
about something I said, and the child in me wants to tell the person, “Well you
try to come up with something meaningful to say every day!” Indeed, some days I go through the
readings and am left scratching my head and need to pray about what God wants
to say. Here I am comforted by
something we learned in seminary—you don’t need to hit a home run every Mass
with the homily—a single will often suffice!
We priests love readings like today
because they have a specific theme.
Today, the Church has in mind the source and summit of our faith, the
Eucharist.
Isaiah proclaims: “Thus says the LORD: All you who are thirsty, come to
the water! You who have no money,
come, receive grain and eat; Come, without paying and without cost, drink wine
and milk!” This
prophecy is what is called a type—a
person, event or prophecy—a sign—that points to something in the New
Testament. Note that Isaiah
specifically mentioned eating grain
and drinking wine—both signs that
point to the Eucharist.
We sang together in the
Responsorial Psalm: “The hand of
the Lord feeds us, he answers all our needs.” Picture feeding a baby—a person who is completely helpless
to feed themselves. This is how
God feeds us—by His own hand—and not just physically but spiritually.
The Gospel narrates one of the
miraculous feedings of Jesus. With
five loaves and two fish he fed over five
thousand people. Picture this
happening today. Imagine a great
crowd at Crazy Days last Wednesday here in International Falls.
For the sake of this hypothetical situation, there is no food in town—no
street vendors and the grocery stores have sold everything—and as the day goes
on everyone gets hungry. Someone
from the crowd is found with the last five loaves of bread from SuperOne. At the same time a parishioner comes in
from fishing with two walleyes on the stringer. (Obviously I wasn’t with, because if I was we would have
limited out!) Visualize Jesus
receiving the loaves and fish and multiplying them. He doesn’t break them into small pieces to share, he
actually breaks them up and more food appears out of thin air.
What would this do for your faith?
From the imaginary to what is real…since
the institution of the Eucharist try to comprehend how many hosts have been
consecrated into Jesus’ Body. We
have celebrated Mass around the world for almost 2000 years and today we have
Mass around the globe at virtually every moment. There have probably been billions, if not trillions of
Eucharistic hosts which have all come from the one sacrifice of Jesus in the
Mass. Talk about multiplying the
loaves!
What does this do for your faith?
The Eucharist is what life is all
about. Coming to Mass is the best!
St. Paul says that nothing can
separate us from the love of Christ—neither anguish, distress, persecution,
famine, nakedness, peril nor the sword.
If you want proof of this fact in your own life, simply keep coming to
Mass.
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