Gospel (Except USA)Matthew 14:13-21The feeding of the five thousand. When Jesus received the news of John the Baptist’s death he withdrew by boat to a lonely place where they could be by themselves. But the people heard of this and, leaving the towns, went after him on foot. So as he stepped ashore he saw a large crowd; and he took pity on them and healed their sick.When evening came, the disciples went to him and said, ‘This is a lonely place, and the time has slipped by; so send the people away, and they can go to the villages to buy themselves some food.’ Jesus replied, ‘There is no need for them to go: give them something to eat yourselves.’ But they answered ‘All we have with us is five loaves and two fish.’ ‘Bring them here to me’ he said. 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 handed them to his disciples who gave them to the crowds. They all ate as much as they wanted, and they collected the scraps remaining; twelve baskets full. Those who ate numbered about five thousand men, to say nothing of women and children. Gospel (USA)Matthew 14:13-21 When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. The crowds heard of this and followed him on foot from their towns. When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said, “This is a deserted place and it is already late; dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.” He said to them, “There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves.” But they said to him, “Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.” Then he said, “Bring them here to me,” and he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds. They all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the fragments left over– twelve wicker baskets full. Those who ate were about five thousand men, not counting women and children. (i) Monday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time We can easily get upset when our plans don’t work out. We might plan for a time of rest and something comes along unexpectedly that we have to deal with. We feel ourselves getting annoyed. In the gospel reading, Jesus planned to go away with his disciples to a lonely place where they could be by themselves. However, a crowd of people got there ahead of them, wanting to be in the presence of Jesus. Far from getting upset or annoyed, the gospel reading says that he had compassion on the crowd and began to heal their sick. The needs of others always come first for Jesus; his own plans will always come second to their needs. The Lord is always there for each one of us. When we come before him, we are never disturbing him. He lives to serve us just as much today as during his public ministry. As the day wore on, Jesus disciples recognized that people were getting hungry. The obvious solution to this problem for the disciples was to send the crowds away to buy food in the neighbouring villages. However, Jesus saw a different solution to their need for food; he would feed them himself, with the help of the disciples. The disciples brought the little food the crowd had to Jesus and, in some mysterious way we don’t understand, Jesus fed the crowd so that everyone was satisfied. Having served the crowd by healing their sick, he now served them by feeding them, satisfying their hunger. The actions of Jesus over the bread - taking, blessing, breaking, giving - remind us of what Jesus would go on to do at the last supper and of what happens at every Mass. At every Mass, Jesus in his compassion continues to feed us, not with bread and fish, but with himself, the Bread of Life. If the Lord is always there for us, he is there for us in a very special way at every Eucharist. He then sends us out from Mass to feed others with his presence, as the disciples fed the crowd with the food Jesus provided. And/Or (ii) Monday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time In the gospel reading, in response to Peter’s invitation, Jesus called Peter to step out of the boat and to come towards him across the water. Surely it would have been safer for Peter to stay in the boat, given that the sea was rough and the wind was strong. Why would Peter want to step out of the relative safety of his boat and to walk towards Jesus, and why would Jesus encourage him to do so, calling on him to ‘come’? Perhaps the evangelist is reminding us through this story that following Jesus will sometimes mean stepping out of our boat, the place where we feel relatively secure, and launching out into the deep. Today’s gospel reading invites us to reflect on the ways that the Lord may be calling us to take some new step in our relationship with him. The Lord is always calling us to ‘come’; he is constantly inviting us to grow in our lived witness to him. The Lord’s call to ‘come’ will take different forms for different people. Today’s gospel reading assures us that whenever we respond to the Lord’s invitation to ‘come’, he will be there to support us when the journey becomes difficult. He will reach out to us when, like Peter, we cry out to him, ‘Lord save me’. The Lord who calls us to journey towards him journeys with us as our strength in times of weakness. And/Or (iii) Monday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time Different people react in different ways to the same situation. In the gospel reading this morning, there is quite a difference between the reaction of Jesus and the reaction of the disciples to the sight of a large hungry crowd in the wilderness. The disciples wanted Jesus to send the crowd away. Jesus wanted his disciples to make some effort to feed the crowd. ‘Give them something to eat yourselves’, he said. Even though they protested that they would not be able to find enough food to feed the crowd, Jesus persisted, and got them to bring the little food they could find to him. Then with that little, with those few resources, the Lord fed the crowd with the help of his disciples. The gospel reading suggests that the Lord will always encourage us to take on some service of others, even when we may feel that our resources are inadequate. If we are generous with those few resources, the Lord will then work with them and through them in ways that will surprise us. The Lord can work wonders through the very ordinary and sometimes unpromising looking resources and gifts that we possess. We have to do our bit, like the disciples in the gospel reading, but the Lord always does much more. Yet, if we are not willing to do the little we can with what we have, the Lord’s own capacity for ministry to others is curtailed. The Lord needs our resources, small and inadequate at they may seem, to continue his good work among us and in the world. And/Or (iv) Monday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time In this morning’s gospel reading, Peter stands out from the other disciples in wanting to step out of the safety of the boat so as to journey towards the Lord who, himself, had journeyed towards the disciples in the boat. Peter’s precarious journey went well until he took his eyes off the Lord and began to notice the force of the wind instead; at that point he began to sink. Matthew the evangelist may be reminding the church of the importance of keeping our eyes fixed on the Lord especially when the elements are against us. There are times in our lives when the force of the wind threatens to overwhelm us and when our feet do not seek to stand on firm ground. It is above all in such moments that we need to keep our gaze fixed on the Lord who always stands before us saying, ‘Courage! It is I! Do not be afraid!’ Even if we do take our eyes off the Lord and find ourselves going under we have only to cry out to the Lord like Peter, ‘Lord! Save me’ and he will reach out to hold us and keep us from sinking. The Lord is Emmanuel, God-with-us, and he is always stronger than whatever threatens to overwhelm us. And/Or (v) Monday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time Our plans do not always turn out as we would want them to. Our initial reaction to things not working out as we had planned is generally one of frustration and disappointment. Yet, it often happens that some unexpected good can come to pass as a result of our plans not working out. When that happens, it is a reminder to us that we need to hold our plans lightly. In this morning’s gospel reading Jesus planned to withdraw with his disciples to a lonely place, but his plans did not work out. The lonely place became a surprisingly crowded place. Yet, something wonderful resulted from Jesus’ plans failing to come to pass. The feeding of the multitude is one of the few gospel stories to be found in all four gospels. The reaction of the disciples to a hungry crowd in a lonely place is to call on Jesus to send them away so that they can buy food for themselves. However, Jesus wants to give them food freely, not have them go off and buy it. Making use of the small resources of food to be found among the crowd, Jesus somehow feeds everyone present so that they all get to eat as much as they wanted. The evangelist is giving us a image of Jesus as a generous host who freely gives to those in need. The same generous host graces us at every Eucharist. There, Jesus freely gives the gift of himself under the form of bread and wine to all who are hungry and thirsty, without distinction. Having received the gift of the Lord, we are then sent out from the Eucharist to give that gift of the Lord to each other by our way of life. And/Or (vi) Monday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time Many of the prayers in the Jewish Scriptures may strike us as very daring. There are a large number of psalms where the person praying complains bitterly to God and seems to hold God to account. This kind of prayer of complaint, or lament, is often punctuated with questions addressed to God, ‘Why?’, ‘How long?’, ‘Where?’ We have a very good example of such a prayer on the lips of Moses in today’s first reading, ‘Why do you treat your servant so badly? Why have I not found favour with you?’… ‘Where am I to find meat to give to all this people?’ Within the Jewish tradition, this was considered a perfectly acceptable way of addressing God. It was a valid form of prayer. People trusted God sufficiently to address him honestly from the heart. They didn’t think they had to tip-toe around God, talking politely to him so as not to anger him. The exchanges between believers and God very often had quite an edge to it in the Scriptures. The exchange between Jesus and his disciples has an edge to it in today’s gospel reading. The disciples call on Jesus to send the people away so that they can buy themselves some food. Jesus replies that there is no need for them to go and that the disciples should give them something to it. The disciples reply that all they have at their disposal is five loaves and two fish, as much as to say, ‘How can you be serious?’ Yet, somehow, Jesus went on to feed the crowd with these few resources. The crowd didn’t have to buy anything, as the disciples suggested. Jesus would feed them freely and abundantly. The early church understood this scene as pointing ahead to the last supper and to the gift of the Eucharist. At the Eucharist, the risen Lord continues to feed us freely and abundantly, with the gift of himself, his body and blood. It is above all in the Eucharist that the Lord gives, without charge. Having received without charge, we are sent from the Eucharist to give as we have received. And/Or (vii) Monday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time We know from our own experience that different people can react to the same situation in different ways. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus and his disciples reacted very differently to the challenge of a large hungry crowd in a deserted place late in the day. The disciples wanted Jesus to send the crowd away so that they could buy some food for themselves somewhere in the vicinity. Jesus seems to have reacted to the word ‘buy’. ‘There is no need for them to go’, he says. Rather than sending them away to buy food, Jesus was going to feed the crowd freely, without charge, thereby revealing God’s generosity. Jesus would need the disciples to help him to feed the crowd, getting the disciples to bring to him whatever little food was out there among the crowd. However, he fed them abundantly out of his own generous love. They say ‘there is no such thing as a free dinner’. Well, that calculating mind-set does not apply to Jesus. He fed the crowd freely and abundantly without asking or looking for payment. There is an image here of how the Lord relates to us all. He pours his love into our lives freely and generously, without asking us to do anything to earn or deserve it. As John’s gospel puts it, ‘from his fullness we have all received’. What Jesus did on this occasion anticipated what he would do at the last supper, taking, blessing, breaking and giving bread. At the last supper Jesus freely and generously gave of his love to his disciples, and he does the same at every Eucharist. Every Mass is pure gift. It is the sacrament of the Lord’s freely given love poured out abundantly into our lives. All that is asked of us is that we receive what the Lord generously gives us and then live out of that abundance in our dealings with each other.5th August Fr. Martin's Reflections/ Homilies on Today's Mass Readings for Monday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Inc. Matthew 14:13-21): ‘They all ate as much as they wanted’.
Monday, Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Reflections (7)
Fr. Martin Hogan.
See Also
August 12-17 weekday homiliesAssumption of Blessed Virgin Mary (Au 15th)HOMILY FOR 19TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME — YEAR BO. T. 19 (B) Sunday homily (Aug 11, 2024)