Homily originally presented July 29, 2018

What’s the most popular room in your house?

In most every home I’ve been in, it’s been the kitchen!

When company comes over, that’s the room where people tend to hang out.

Why?          Because that’s where the food is!

Yes, we’re sociable people ...

    and we especially like to talk to one another while eating and drinking.

Eating and drinking are pleasurable activities ... God made them that way.

In fact God has attached pleasure to many things that He wants us to do.

He wants us to eat ... and He wants us to drink.

So He’s made those pleasurable activities ... but pleasure is not their purpose.

The purpose of eating is nourishment;

The purpose of drinking is hydration.

We need to nourish and hydrate ourselves in order to live.

God knows this and He helps us to attain the nourishment we need.

Today, we heard of two instances of God helping to feed His people!

In our First Reading, we heard how Elisha fed 100 people with 20 loaves of bread. 

And in John’s Gospel, we heard how Jesus fed 5000 with just 5 loaves of bread.

Both of these were miraculous events!

And they show us several things about God.

1. God sees us in our need.
2. God has compassion on us and desires to take care of us.
3. God has the power to take care of us even in the most dire situations ...
4. God’s care for us is lavish and

Lets’ look at each of these truths about God:

First of all: God sees us in our need.

John tells us, “Jesus raised his eyes and saw a large crowd coming to him.”

Jesus doesn’t miss a thing.

   We, His brothers and sisters are always in his sight;

Jesus sees us when we’re satisfied ... and He sees us in our need.

   Nothing escapes his view.

Secondly, God has compassion on us and desires to take care of us.

Notice how right after Jesus asked Philip

where they could buy enough food for the people to eat

John points out that Jesus only “said this to test him,

because he himself knew what he was going to do.” 

Jesus knew all along that He was going to feed the people ...

so great was His compassion for those who had spent the day without food.

Thirdly, God has the power to take care of us even in dire situations of need ...

where receiving help seems impossible.

The Apostle Philip tells Jesus, “Two hundred days wages worth of food

would not be enough for each of them to have a little.”    

What Philip was saying was:

there’s no way on earth that we’ll be able to feed this crowd!

And he was right ... there was no way on earth to feed that many people.

But there was a way ... with the help of Almighty God!

In both the Old and New Testament accounts, there was no conceivable way that the number of hungry people could be fed by the amount of available food.

For Elisha, there were only 20 loaves for 100 people … a 5 to 1 ratio of need.

For Jesus, there were only 5 loaves for 5000 people … a 1000 to 1 ratio of need.

Feeding them would require a miracle ... and God was there to provide it.

And Fourthly, these miraculous feedings show us ... the lavishness of God!

When God gives, He doesn’t give us just enough and no more.

When God gives, He always gives us more than enough.

With Elisha, Scripture says, “When they had eaten, there was some left over.”

With Jesus, John points out that the Apostles went around and gathered up the fragments from the feeding ...  12 wicker baskets full.

The people didn’t get just a sampling of food, Scripture says they had their fill!

So what kind of God do we have?

A God who watches over us and sees our need,

A God who desires to satisfy our need,

A God who has the power to do so even when there’s no earthly way visible

A God who provides His help in a lavish and abundant way.

After hearing these two scripture accounts, where else would you turn for help?

Is there any other source around of such compassionate and abundant power?

No! There’s only God ... whose praises we sang in our Responsorial Psalm saying,

“The eyes of all look hopefully to you, and you give them their food in due season; you open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.”

Now as much as God wants to satisfy our physical needs,

He’s even more interested in satisfying our spiritual needs.

And He uses these displays of His power in the physical world

to get us to believe that He has similar power in the spiritual world.

These miraculous feedings of the people

were meant to prefigure how Jesus would one day establish the Eucharist

to feed us sacramentally with His very Body and Blood.

Did you notice the time of year that this miraculous feeding of the 5000 took place?

St. John makes a point of noting in ver. 4, “The Jewish feast of Passover was near.” 

Here, John recognizes the connection between:

the miraculous Multiplication of the loaves at the Sea of Galilee

and the miraculous multiplication of Jesus ... in the loaves ... at the Last Supper.

These two events took place one year apart ... at the time of Passover!

The Miraculous Feeding of the Apostles that took place on Holy Thursday ...

   is celebrated in every Mass ... demonstrating the 4 characteristics of God.

That God sees us in our need ... that He desires to help us ...

that He has the power to help us ... and that He is lavish in his help.

As Jesus was preparing to leave this world ... He saw the need of the Apostles and the need of all people for all time ... their need for spiritual strength.

So out of compassion for us, He established a way to feed our souls ...

with bread from Heaven ... which is nothing less than Himself ...

his very own Body and Blood.

Jesus took the most natural thing we do ... eating ... and made it the way that we gain spiritual nourishment ... eating Jesus ...  the Bread from Heaven.

The lavishness of God is evident in the fact that Jesus gave the power

to provide the Eucharist to His Apostles ... for them to use ...

and also hand on to all Bishops and Priests for all time ... till the end of time!

This repeatable and enduring miracle shows the abundant love of God!

The Great Miracle of the Eucharist is clearly described in the 6^th Chapter of the Gospel of John, which you’ll hear fully proclaimed over the next 4 Sundays.

This is a privilege that only happens once every three years! It’s because we’re reading predominantly from Mark’s Gospel this year and with his being the shortest, the Church gives us the 6^th Chapter of John to meditate on in a special way.

Today we heard verses 1 – 15, next wk. 24 – 35,   then 41 – 51,    51 – 58 and    60 – 69.

In the first 15 verses proclaimed today, Jesus is preparing the people.

What’s He preparing them for?

• To first of all believe that He had the power to feed them physically,
• So later they’d believe that He had the power to feed them spiritually.

Yes, in feeding the 5000, Jesus showed the people that He could multiply bread.

Later He would call them to believe that He could multiply Himself, in the bread.

For Jesus would soon tell them that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood.

Well, how exactly were they and all of us to do that? 

How are we to feed on His flesh and blood ...

          there’s no way on earth for that to happen!

But as in the feeding of the 5000, God can find a way where there is no way.

And God’s way is the Eucharist … the Miraculous Bread from Heaven, which is the Body and Blood of Jesus veiled under the appearance of bread and wine!

God’s way of feeding us spiritually is through the Eucharist.

Like eating food, God attaches great pleasure to consuming the Eucharist...

It’s His way of motivating us to get the nourishment we need for our souls.

The Eucharist removes Venial Sins and strengthens us in our Baptismal promises. 

Today, let’s rejoice in how observant and caring and powerful and lavish God is.

He delights in caring for our bodies and our souls.

So let’s reach out to Him regularly... to get all the help we need ...

to sustain us in this life ... and prepare us for Eternal Life.