Homilies
Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 30, 2006
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What’s the Meaning?
In today’s readings for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, we receive an explicit teaching from Saint Paul regarding Christian unity. And the teaching is both preceded and followed by a miracle stories of feeding the hungry. Holy Mother Church is not being very subtle here, she wants us to see Saint Paul’s teaching in the miracle stories.
In the first reading we come across Elisha, a man of God who has been working miracle after miracle among God’s chosen ones. In this story, Elisha satisfies the hunger of one hundred hungry men with very little food, twenty loaves of bread and a small sack of corn to be precise. We will then hear in the Gospel a very similar miracle performed by Jesus himself. Elisha’ miracle is a kind of prelude to the one of Jesus. We shall learn that Jesus’ miracle is far more significant, but nevertheless, the two stories have many facts in common. In both stories, we find that:
There is a crowd gathered to listen to the word of God.
The crowd is hungry.
There is food brought to the man acting as priest.
The amount of food is obviously insufficient.
The priest commands that the food be distributed so that the people will be nourished.
An objection is made that the amount of food is inadequate.
The objection is ignored by the man acting as priest.
The hungry people are satisfied.
There is even food left over.
After the brief account of Elisha’s miracle in the first reading, there appears to be a major change in theme as we come to the Epistle. If one were forced to give a very brief recap of what Saint Paul is saying, it would sound something like this: “it’s an exhortation that we Christians ought to be united.” But this little recap would miss what is essential to the reading.
Saint Paul isn’t just giving us an exhortation. he is stating a tremendously important theological fact: he is saying that we ought to act as one because we are one.
No matter how much in–fighting there is in the Church, the reality is this: the Church is one. It is one according to it’s nature. As Saint Paul says: “There is one body, one Spirit… one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God—who is Father of all.” We call a man healthy when everything in his body is working according to the ordering principal for the good of the whole body. Saint Paul is saying that the same holds true for the Church: she is one and, therefore, ought to act according to her ordering principal.
And what would it mean to act according to this ordering principal? Saint Paul tells us: “God is above all, is in all, and is acting through all.” Hence, the members of the Church are acting according to their nature when they are submitting to the unifying principle of the Holy Spirit who is “above all, in all, and acting through all.” If we are “bearing with one another in love” of the Holy Spirit, then we are acting in the “unity of the Holy Spirit,” bringing greater health to the Mystical Body of Christ.
Today’s Gospel is in fact a manifestation of Saint Paul’s teaching on unity.
Saint John begins the story by noting that the event takes place just as the Passover is “drawing near.” Saint John is giving us a clue so that we might see the greater significance of this miracle.
The forthcoming Passover will be only the second since Jesus began his active life. The third will be his last, at the Last Supper wherein he institutes the Eucharist. So this event of the multiplication of the loaves is, like the original Passover, a foreshadowing of the Eucharist.
By taking the bread, blessing it, and distributing it to the multitude, Jesus is preparing them to receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist, the true “bread of angels” (Ps. 78:25). This is why Jesus will say to them the very next day: “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.” (Jn. 6:32)
Jesus gave of himself to feed the Mystical Body. He bore our burdens—he bore our sins—in love so that we might become in fact what we are in nature: one body.
What’s the Message?
The general message is clear: our Father in heaven is really and truly a father, even more so than our biological father is a father. And we are members of a family which is the Mystical Body of Christ, a real unity in the strict sense of the word. And, finally, this body receives its daily nourishment from the Eucharist: Christ who is the Bread of Life given to us by our Father from heaven. Hence, we must act like members of the Body and not individuals. We have to act always for the good of the whole, submitting to the will of the Holy Spirit.
But what does this mean concretely?
Saint Paul gives us the answer: “Bear with one another in love.”
Now this command may sound easy enough, but it’s hard to live by. Further, most of us aren’t even aware that we’re not living by it. We even tend to think that we’re pretty good at bearing with all the idiots, sinners, and hypocrites that we meet each day. We’re actually quite proud of ourselves, the way we help such inferior souls become aware of their shortcomings.
How far our own thinking can be from conforming to reality! How little we tend to really know ourselves.
What’s the Respone?
If I am to take the message of today’s readings seriously, I need to ask myself if I am bringing about unity or division in the Mystical Body. One thing I can do right now is make a bit of a reality check. I can ask myself what others might think of my character.
Saint Paul says: “Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way, and it is not irritable or resentful.” (1 Cor. 13:4–5) What might my associates think of me? Are there many who would say that I tend to be impatient, envious, or rude? If so, it may in fact be the case that I don’t really love. And, as Saint John says, if I don’t love I don’t really know God. (1 Jn. 4:7)
I have to be honest with myself. I have to pray to God that he make me change, that I become someone who truly loves.
With the Psalmist in today’s Mass, I therefore pray:
The Lord is just in all his ways,
and kind in all his doings.
The Lord is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.
The hand of the Lord feeds us;
he answers all our needs.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.
Amen.
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To download a printable pdf of this homily, click here.
Contribution by Brother Anthony Myers
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