Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 'A'

Friday July 29, 2011

We’re all connected…

As you attended to the readings today, what struck you most? Were you as ready to speak up and speak out as our evangelical sisters and brothers, you might say that you were struck by the connection between Isaiah’s invitation to the Lord’s metaphorical feast and Matthew’s description of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, and of course, you would be right on target. It’s obvious.

Note that Isaiah sets the tone and theme by announcing that the banquet is for those who are thirsty, hungry and poor. “You who have no money, come, receive grain and eat… without payment, without cost….”

Did any of the words or phrases in Matthew’s text ring a bell? “He raised his eyes to heaven, blessed and broke them [the loaves] and gave them to the disciples.” Where else have you heard these words? Indeed, in the Eucharistic narrative just before the words of consecration at Mass.

So already, we have made two important connections.

Scripture scholars tell us that Matthew used these precise words when he recorded this story to make it clear that the Eucharistic bread used in the gathering of believers is connected to the bread multiplied during that ‘picnic’ on the shore. In fact, there is a physical connection between the loaves at that picnic and the sacred bread and wine used at this Eucharistic table in which we are all connected not only to one another but to the poor and hungry throughout the world.

Notice that it was Jesus’ disciples who distributed the loaves and fishes to the crowds. And so it is we who must be the able distributors of God’s goodness and generosity, water for the thirsty, bread for the hungry and to the poor without cost.

The worst famine in recorded history is taking place in our own time in Somalia. We cannot come to this Eucharist table and not send help to those who thirst and hunger in Somalia and to wherever there is hunger and famine at home and around the globe.

In the midst of our national budget crisis is it not a scandal that the poor of the world continue to go hungry?

Our God is interactive and incarnational. To be precise, we believe in a God whose face is visible in creation, whose breath is in the air and whose life can be experienced in the human personality of Jesus who became the living word and the bread of life for our salvation and for the salvation of all humanity.

The sacraments are visible ritual events that dramatize God’s interventions in the past so that we may be transformed by their powerful effects in the present and become what we celebrate for the future – people of the Word and bread blessed and broken for humanity. In other words, we become the very substance of God’s presence as individuals and as a community of faith. This is why we are called ‘the Body of Christ’ blessed and broken for humanity. Through this ritual, we are absorbed into God’s life by the Holy Spirit so that we may live in grace and enable others not only to breathe in God’s spirit and be fed with the God’s word but also to be nourished with food from our table of plenty.

St Paul tells the young Christian faithful in Rome not to be discouraged because the love of God that has come to us in Christ is enduring. But only the living members of his body, the Church, can make concrete the compassion presence of God. We are the heart and the hands of God in Christ.

The late Henri Nouen among so many other spiritual writers, contemporary and ancient, make the point that there Eucharist is meaningless without the all important connection to everything that gives and nurtures life and with all who hunger for fullness of life, physical and spiritual. (Cf. Eucharist without Walls.)

So come and eat without cost. Be strengthened and refreshed but remember that the Eucharist is not just for our own personal nourishment, but given for all for the salvation of the world. Salvation comes from the word for safety and healing. Did you make the connection?

And here’s how you can help:

Catholic Relief Services, PO Box 17090, Baltimore, MD 21298-9664 or any number of secular agencies, Help for Victims

When I was an active pastor, I was encouraged by the ‘higher ups’ to initiate the tithing program for parish giving. It’s based on the Old Testament notion of giving to God, the first fruits of our goods whether it be the fruit of the earth, the work of human hands, or the sacrifice of the first born calf. Thus it was tied in with the notion of sacrificial giving. Current tithing programs suggest the donation of ten percent of our wages – five percent to the Church the other five to other charities of our choice.

I am aware that there are many people who tithe. But I am also aware that there are many who do not subscribe to it for a complexity of reasons, (tax laws, etc.) many of them valid. I’m myself was not comfortable in promoting it as a program for giving but I did suggest that congregants consider a formula for giving that works for them and to make it sacrificial. During Lent we had so many appeals literally from around the world that it was overwhelming. My suggestion was to “select your sacrifice” but be generous to it. It worked. Our parish income average was quite high – surely not equal to tithing but comparably higher than many parishes.

Yes, there are many appeals that come to our mail and email boxes. Select your sacrifice but give generously to the charity of your choice. Every so often, a world crisis is so great, that we need to dig down deeper and forgo other luxuries and perhaps a few non-essentials so that others can have the minium for survival.

When I worked in the inner-city of Peterson, is was amazing how the poor reached out to the poor. They had little to give but from what little they had, they gave generously to those who were poorer than they.

Select your sacrifice and be generous to it because we are all connected.

________

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