20140803
BE LIKE CHRIST, THE BREAD BROKEN FOR THE
WORLD
Reading 1, Isaiah 55:1-3
1 Oh, come to the water all you who are thirsty; though
you have no money, come! Buy and eat; come, buy wine and milk without money,
free!
2 Why spend money on what cannot nourish and your wages on
what fails to satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and you will have good things to
eat and rich food to enjoy.
3 Pay attention, come to me; listen, and you will live. I
shall make an everlasting covenant with you in fulfilment of the favours promised
to David.
Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 145:8-9, 15-16, 17-18
8 Yahweh is tenderness and pity, slow to anger, full of
faithful love.
9 Yahweh is generous to all, his tenderness embraces all
his creatures.
16 And, with generous hand, you satisfy the desires of
every living creature.
18 He is close to all who call upon him, all who call on
him from the heart.
Gospel, Matthew 14:13-21
13 When Jesus received this news he withdrew by boat
to a lonely place where they could be by themselves. But the crowds heard of
this and, leaving the towns, went after him on foot.
14 So as he stepped ashore he saw a large crowd; and he
took pity on them and healed their sick.
15 When evening came, the disciples went to him and said,
'This is a lonely place, and time has slipped
by; so send the people away, and they can go to the villages to buy themselves
some food.'
16 Jesus replied, 'There is no need for them to go: give
them something to eat yourselves.'
17 But they answered, 'All we have with us is five loaves
and two fish.'
18 So he said, 'Bring them here to me.'
19 He gave orders that the people were to sit down on the
grass; then he took the five loaves and the two fish, raised his eyes to heaven and said
the blessing. And breaking the loaves he handed them to his disciples, who gave
them to the crowds.
20 They all ate as much as they wanted, and they collected
the scraps left over, twelve baskets full.
21 Now about five thousand men had eaten, to say nothing
of women and children.
Reading 2, Romans 8:35, 37-39
35 Can anything cut us off from the love of Christ -- can hardships or distress, or
persecution, or lack of food and clothing, or threats or violence;
37 No; we come through all these things triumphantly
victorious, by the power of him who loved us.
38 For I am certain of this: neither death nor life, nor
angels, nor principalities, nothing already in existence and nothing still to
come, nor any power,
39 nor the heights nor the depths, nor any created thing
whatever, will be able to
come between us and the love of God, known to us in Christ Jesus our Lord.
BE
LIKE CHRIST, THE BREAD BROKEN FOR THE WORLD
SCRIPTURE
READINGS: ISA 55:1-3; ROM 8:35.37-39; MT 14:13-21
http://www.universalis.com/20140803/mass.htm
We are all hungry, like the Israelites and the Jews in
today’s scripture readings. We crave to satisfy our material needs.
But whatever we have never seems to be enough. We also worry about our physical
health. Today, many of us not only look after our health but are
obsessed about our body. We go for all kinds of slimming products and
solutions so that we will not only be healthy but look forever young!
Even if we can satisfy
our material needs in life, we might still not find happiness and peace. This dissatisfaction and
restlessness in our hearts is a sign that Jesus is trying to get our
attention. He wants us to search deeper into ourselves and ask why there
is the feeling of emptiness in our lives. What is causing this vacuum in
our hearts?
At the bottom of all this
hunger is a spiritual problem because God is absent in our lives.
We are a selfish and broken people. Many are under some kind of bondages,
whether it is to anger, revenge and hatred, envy and pride. Others suffer
from addictions to pornography, lust, gambling, drinking and stealing. As
a result, we are unable to love. We have no peace of mind, living in deep
anxiety and frustrations. There seems to be no end to the tunnel.
The Good News is that in
the first reading, God
reminds Israel of His covenantal love for them. God, who is faithful in
love, would never abandon them. And so in their exile and captivity, in
their hunger and thirst, God promised them hope and an invitation to drink and
eat of Him so that they will never be hungry and thirsty again.
In the gospel, we see how Jesus
the compassionate shepherd never left His flock hungry and untended.
Even when He was feeling sad upon hearing that John the Baptist was beheaded;
and although wanting to be alone with His disciples to grieve over his death,
He put the needs and the sufferings of others before His own pain. He was moved
not just by a feeling of pity but an active compassion to teach and heal
them. How many of us can do that? When we are feeling sad and down,
we can only think of our pain, oblivious to the sufferings of others. But
not Jesus; the sufferings of others are more important than His pain. He
is able to make space for others in His heart.
In multiplying the
loaves, Jesus defined who He really was for humanity, a man truly for others. John the Baptist’s cruel
death must have struck Him that He, too, would have to follow the path of
martyrdom if He were to proclaim the Father’s love. This feeding of the
Five Thousand anticipates His own passion. In the multiplication of the loaves,
Jesus was presenting Himself dramatically as the One who comes to feed us, with
His body and blood. He is the love of God in person. He will
satisfy our thirst and hunger. Just as there were twelve baskets of
left-over, the abundance of God’s love can satisfy everyone.
Jesus is the free gift
of God in person.
This is what the prophet meant when he said, “Oh, come to the water all you who
are thirsty; though you have no money, come! Buy corn without money, and eat,
and, at no cost, wine and milk.” Obviously this passage is a prefiguring of the
Eucharistic meal that the Lord provides for His people.
Indeed, the love of God
is made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord, both in His preaching and doing,
especially in the Eucharist. When we know that God loves us in
a real and concrete way, St Paul says, “Nothing can come between us and the
love of Christ, even if we are troubled or worried, or being persecuted, or
lacking food or clothes, or being threatened or even attacked … These are the
trials through which we triumph, by the power of him who loved us.”
Indeed, when we are
loved, we can endure all sufferings in life. Certainly we do not look
forward to suffer. That would be abnormal. But we do not mind suffering
because of Him and for someone whom we love or for someone who loves us.
When we know that God is with us, we will be able to join Jesus in carrying the
cross unto death, for we know that with Jesus, we will triumph at the end.
Just as the love of Jesus for His Father could not separate them even at the
cross, so too we can be certain that when God loves us, we will triumph.
Yes, to find life and
direction and inspiration, we must listen to the voice of the Lord so that
we can discern the movements of His Spirit in our lives. The reason why
many of us are confused in life and lose courage so easily is because we do not
listen to His Word. When we listen to Jesus, then we will come to
realize what our real hunger in life is. Unless we eat of Him, we cannot
find life. For the words that we eat will make us become like Him in mind and
spirit.
Secondly, Jesus as the
Bread of life
satisfies our need for relationship and communion. In the reception of
communion, we have a personal relationship with Jesus. Only a personal
experience of His love, through the enlightenment of the mind and the presence
of His love in our hearts, can we find peace and joy. When we have
love in our hearts, especially the love of God, we need very few things to be
happy.
However, we do not
receive the Eucharist simply for ourselves. The Eucharist is the body
and blood of Christ but it is also the Christian community. Jesus comes
to give us Himself not only through the Sacrament of the Eucharist but by giving
us a relationship with God and with each other. The Eucharist can
be truly an experience of God when it is celebrated with a community, for each
one of us is called to bring Jesus to each other. Every one of us has
been called by God to be a Eucharist to each other. By praying and worshipping
together, we strengthen each other. By reading and sharing the Word of
God together, we enlighten each other. Indeed, in many ways, we are
called to offer each other the Word. It is not enough to receive the Eucharist
individually, but in becoming more like Christ we are called to give ourselves
to each other. Indeed, the purpose of receiving Jesus in the Eucharist is
in order that we too live out the truth and meaning of life in love.
This is the implication of the
command of Jesus whenever we celebrate the Eucharist. When He tells
us to do this in memory of Him, He is not simply asking us to celebrate the
Eucharist as a ritual as often as possible. He is saying to us that we
too must be like Him, to give up our body for others, and our blood as
well. In other words, we must be food for others. We are called to
die for our spouse, children, loved ones, for the Church and also for society
in general. Yes, we must use all our resources, not just what is left-over
from our abundance, to help others. Like Jesus, we must become the bread
broken for others. Only then can we find the meaning of life, which is
love in service.
This is where the
difficulty or danger lies. Many of us tend to excuse ourselves, like the
disciples. “We have only five loaves and two fish”, they said.-Like them
we find that our care and compassion is very often limited to prayer and good
wishes. Like the disciples we wish people well but have no intention of taking
positive action to help the situation. Their solution is to send them
away. Yet, Jesus told them, “feed them yourselves!” In fact, He is
saying, “feed them with yourselves!”
We are responsible to bring
the Eucharist to others by extending His love and mercy. Some of us might
feel that we have nothing much to offer. But when we bring the little
that we have to Jesus, He will multiply them for us. All we need to do is
to have the desire to give ourselves in service to others. Truly, all
that Jesus needs from us to feed the hungry crowds of the world is our “five
loaves and two fish.”
What do we give to Him? Firstly, give Him your time,
especially in prayer. If you are willing to invest your time in prayer
and pray with your heart and soul, He will enlighten you and empower you in
your life. He will refresh you with His love.
Secondly, give Him your
service and talents. Allow the Lord to lead you to serve people, for in
service you will come to know the joy of loving and giving. Whatever you
give to the Lord, He will transform it beyond your imagination. He has done so
with the bread, and He will do so with whatever meager efforts you give to Him.
The truth is that we are not poor in things and money or talents but poor in
life. This is why we are truly poor.
WRITTEN BY THE MOST REV WILLIAM GOH
ARCHBISHOP OF SINGAPORE
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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