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22Nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

This week the schools have re opened after the summer break and we begin the season of Creation that runs until the beginning of October. During the month we give thanks for our world and all the good things within it that are god given gifts remembering that we are called to use them wisely for the good of everyone.  The readings for this Sunday tell us to be wary of those things which lead us to sin and remind us that we must really follow Jesus in our hearts. In the first reading Moses instructs Israel to strictly follow God’s laws to demonstrate wisdom and receive life and land. God’s closeness and just laws set them apart from other nations. In the Second Reading we hear that all good actions and perfect gifts come from God, who is unchanging. We are called to embrace His word, act on it, and care for those in need.

In the Gospel Jesus is accused of flouting sacred tradition. Religious officials from Jerusalem and local Pharisees want to know why Jesus permits his disciples to disregard the unwritten tradition of the elders. The problem is that the disciples do not wash their hands before they eat. The complaint is not that the disciples ignore good hygiene, but that they ignore the tradition of ceremonial washing. In doing this they are numbered among the unclean. Jesus does not dismiss the Law but he condemns its misuse. The Pharisees were certainly guilty of misusing the Law by placing heavy burdens on the shoulders of the people. The ritual hand washing before eating has its origins in the common sense practice of washing one’s hands before eating a meal, something any sensible person would do. But by the time of Jesus this custom had become incorporated into the Law, it had become much more elaborate and was accompanied by prayers as a way of consecrating the whole day and all one’s actions to God. This is fine and good, but it should not become a burden or become a reason for accepting some people and rejecting others, depending on whether they observed these prescriptions or not. Jesus cuts through all of this and turns it around and accuses the Pharisees of honouring God with lip-service while their hearts are far from him.

 Jesus sees the true purpose of the Pharisees, he knows that they are there to build a case against him.  Jesus points out that nothing that goes into a man can make him unclean, it is what comes out of him that makes him unclean. Jesus goes to the very core of the matter and tells us that it is not whether we fail to perform this or that act that makes us evil but the desires of our heart. It is our heart that we have to look at to see whether we conform to God’s laws or not. The law of God forbids all those things that set people against each other: theft, murder, greed, etc. The positive command of God’s law is “to serve God in each other,” to walk blamelessly, do justice, walk humbly with our God and to not harm one’s fellow-man. Let us try to do this in the days ahead as we go forward as gods people.

21st Sunday or Ordinary Time

In the First Reading this weekend  Joshua challenges Israel to choose who they wanted to serve, the gods of their ancestors or the gods of the Amorites Joshua tells them that he will serve the Lord  and the people reaffirm their commitment to the Lord, recalling His deliverance and protection. In the Second Reading  from Ephesians we hear about how Christ’s love guides marital roles: wives respecting husbands as the church respects Christ, and husbands loving wives as Christ loves the church, symbolizing unity and sanctity. In this Gospel reading, Jesus puts the choice to His apostles of following Him, or of leaving Him that is also the choice he gives to all of us as well.

Jesus did not give an easy remedy for the doubts his disciples had in reaction to his words, nor did he water-down impact those words had on them. After hearing Jesus’ teaching on the bread of life, many of the people find Jesus’ language intolerable how could anyone accept it. As a result of this intolerable language some  of them choose to leave him.  In a similar way today so many people find the words of Jesus to be intolerable language as many people have got up and left their faith behind them and some may never return again. No one who accepts that Christ is the Son of God has any difficulty in believing that he left us himself in the Eucharist. He promised to give his body and blood in the Eucharist as an everlasting memorial to be our spiritual nourishment and our means of offering an acceptable  sacrifice to God every time his body and blood are made present by the words of the priest. He fulfilled that promise at the Last Supper. He gave to his Apostles and their successors the power to repeat this act of divine love when he said: “Do this in memory of me.”

When Simon Peter answered Christ’s challenge will you too go away?”  he spoke not only for his fellow Apostles he also spoke for us when he said “Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. and we believe; and we know that you are the Holy One of God.” We are the people who really believe that Christ was the incarnate Son of God. Peter made his act of faith before he was fully convinced of the divinity of Christ, but he already knew that Christ was close to God and spoke nothing but the truth. We have the proof of Christ’s divinity which Peter and the Apostles later got, he gave them the bread of life and he went to the cross and rose again. We also have the witness of the early Christians whose belief in Jesus   was at the very center of their Christian lives as it should be the center of ours.   We can trust that what Jesus taught is true, even if we do not fully understand how it could possibly be.

Many people who became saints died for their belief in Jesus; hopefully we can live our faith fully, even in times of doubting the actions of some of those in the Church.  So today we say Lord, You have the message of eternal life” and we believe; and  we know that you are the Holy One of God and we will follow you.

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

The first reading this weekend tells how Wisdom has built a house and invited the foolish (those who are not yet wise) to feast on the food that is her teaching Wisdom has spread a table of choice food and drink. She has invited the all of us to the feast. Those who eat the bread and drink the wine of Wisdom perceive God’s saving action and understand the life to which they are called as God’s own people. In the Gospel, the dialogue between Jesus and the people continues. This time they are arguing about how Jesus could possibly give them his flesh to eat. Jesus insists that if they don’t eat it they will not have life in them and they will not have eternal life.

The receiving of this gift from god becomes the acceptance and acknowledgment of the Lord’s care for us and thus, ultimately, the nourishment we need to continue the journey.  There is one concrete way that the Lord helps us to make this connection that is by providing the Eucharist the bread of Life.   In the bread and wine offered at Mass  the risen Lord makes himself present.  While the priest invokes the words of blessing (thus acting as the instrument of Christ or “in persona Christi”), the conversion of the bread and wine into the blood into the Body and Blood of Christ remains the work of God through the working of the Holy Spirit. The offer to partake in the “living bread” is God’s offer of unity with Christ and his followers.  When we receive communion we don’t receive an inanimate object.  This is Jesus the son of God we receive . The One Who Is who was and will be in the future. When we receive communion we take within ourselves the dynamic, powerful presence who speaks to us through the life He has given us.  How great is our God. He has found a way for each of us to have continual, intimate encounters with Him.

Let us pray, for those whose access to the Gift of the Eucharist or Blessed Sacrament is not so easy whether they have left the faith or perhaps they might be struggling with it or for many they may not yet found it as we remember that Jesus has said ‘I am the Bread of life he who comes to me will never be hungry.’   This Sunday we are invited to have faith in Christ’s presence among us; we are challenged to believe that we really can live in him, and he in us. The more often we accept the invitation to communion, the more we will understand its meaning. Let us pray, for those whose access to the Gift of the Eucharist or Blessed Sacrament is not so easy whether they have left the faith or perhaps they might be struggling with it or for many they may not yet found it as we remember that Jesus has said ‘I am the Bread of life he who comes to me will never be hungry.

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

In the First Reading for the 18^th Sunday from Exodus the Israelites complained of hunger, so God promised to send bread from heaven and meat at dusk. God sent them manna from heaven as food demonstrating His power and care for all of them. In the second reading from  Ephesians we are told to Discard your old ways and renew your mind St Paul tells us not to continue to live the aimless life the pagans live. He then tells us that we should be renewed by the spiritual revolution, embracing a new self, crafted in righteousness and holiness, as taught by Jesus Christ.

Our focus in In the  Gospel reading 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 leads on to eternal life. The one thing which earns this food is believing in the one God has sent. To be nourished by Jesus one must have faith in him. This implies a personal relationship with Jesus. Once this personal relationship has been established everything else finds its proper place and true purpose.  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 sent  the manna from heaven and  he compares himself to the God who now gives them the real bread from heaven. Jesus declares that he himself is the bread come down from heaven.

Whoever believes in him will never be hungry. Yet there are so many people in our world who suffer from physical and spiritual hunger.  I think that these days with all the possibilities for so many things we need to be the bread of life for all those who are out there who have lost the faith or those who are searching and many people are. What does it mean to be the Bread of Life to others? It means two things: Feeding the hungry through our work with and donations to organisations that bring physical relief  to the people who need it in the world. It also means that we are a light of faith to others showing that God the Father sent Jesus from heaven to be our spiritual food, our strength, our hope, and our joy as we live our lives as Christians. There are so many people in the world that are hungry for the bread of life that Jesus tells us about in this Gospel Reading and the question for us today is how will we feed their hunger so that they can make the choice to accept this great gift of God as we have done?

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

In the First Reading from the second book of kings   A man brings Elisha twenty loaves and grain. Despite his servant’s doubt, Elisha insists they feed a hundred people, assuring them that there will be leftovers, which indeed happens. In the Responsorial Psalm  All of God’s creations thank Him. God provides food in the right season, opening wide his hands to satisfy all  our desires. He is just and close to all who call upon Him with faith. In the Second Reading From  Ephesians we are called to  Live  our divine call with humility, gentleness, and patience, showing love and unity. as we are united under one Lord, faith, baptism, and Father. In the Gospel reading   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 hunger to know that God is on their side, when the rest of the world considers them insignificant. How can their physical and spiritual hungers be fed . In their Roman- occupied world they are slaves. They are a long way from the seat of 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. 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. 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 it?” The boy in this Gospel is a good example for us to follow  better to do something about the situation we are in than nothing at all.  

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 and nothing was!   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 find.  Life may have passed them by, but Jesus didn’t.  He took note of them, and they in turn saw in him a place to be nourished, a place where deep hungers and longings of life would be fulfilled. The Gospel account of the multiplication of the loaves gives us  food for thought and prayer as we think about life with all its ups and downs with all its happy and sad times. When Jesus fed the crowds he taught them about God’s unconditional love. The only prerequisite they had to have to receive the food was their hunger.

The first Christians when they heard John’s story of the feeding of the five thousand , would have been reminded that they were to serve the physical and spiritual hunger of those in need. We too are called today to do the same for the people around us where we are in our own time and place.

16th Sunday of Ordinary Time

This weekend we celebrate the 16^th Sunday in Ordinary Time and we listen to the story of the good shepherd. The first reading from the prophet Jeremiah talks about the shepherds that do not look after the flock and what will happen them for their misdeeds. The response to the psalm is the Lords my Shepherd there is nothing I shall want. That tells us that we shall want for nothing with the Lord as our shepherd as goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives as we dwell in the lords own house. In the Second Reading from Ephesians; Christ has made us one by His sacrifice, breaking down barriers and granting us all access to the Father, ensuring peace among us. 

In the 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 evidently 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 they should go to a quiet corner 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 human compassion took over. They were like sheep without a shepherd and seeing the people of Galilee so anxious to hear about God and his mercy, he let them stay and began to preach the good news of forgiveness and hope to them.  Jesus cares for us and all those who need rest and spiritual nourishment as he did his apostles and the crowd in the Gospel!

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 people who mirror 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 are in our families, communities, work places  or parishes. 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 let Jesus say 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 has 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 little or almost nothing and the few have so much. Jesus has the answers to our questions; and they all come down to living a life deeply in harmony with God.  And he not only tells us but shows us the way. He talks the talk but he also walks the walk with us.

And the walk eventually takes him to Jerusalem and up the hill to Golgotha where he gave his life for us so that we may have life. Jesus meets us,right where we are as a shepherd king, with genuine concern for us – not as a warrior king with threats and punishments.  All those who really encounter Jesus and his message have an anchor in their lives. The anchor is the care and concern of the Good Shepherd for all of us. This is what we believe and we are called to share the love of Christ that we have received with others  where we are today.