Come, all of you who are thirsty. Come to the waters, quench your thirst. Come, eat, & satisfy your hunger. It doesn’t matter if you’re poor or if you
don’t have any money. Come to me in your
need and in your poverty. Isaiah spoke
to the people of ancient Israel in the midst of their exile from the promised
land. They were poor, hungry,
thirsty. They were needy, confused,
broken, with very little hope. The Lord
promises them a banquet that will satisfy their hunger. Isaiah spoke to those with physical hunger and physical poverty, but also a hunger for God. They hungered for a return to their promised
land, to their Temple in Jerusalem. They
hungered to make right their relationship with God, to renew their covenant
with him, to make a connection with the divine. They hungered for peace, for reconciliation,
for wholeness in the midst of a very broken world.
Isaiah spoke to
the people in midst of their very harsh reality. Many centuries after Isaiah’s prophecy, Jesus
encountered a people who had a deep hunger, a deep thirst. A great crowd had come to see him in person,
many traveling from a great distance on foot.
They came to hear his proclamation of God’s kingdom. They came to be in his presence, to see
first-hand what the people were saying about him. Jesus looked into their eyes, recognizing
their spiritual hunger, having pity for the deep longing they had to connect to
God.
Here was this vast
crowd, hungry and searching.
Jesus’ disciples saw this crowd as well.
Yet, instead feeling compassion, the disciples wanted to
send the people away. Perhaps the
disciples were thinking: This crowd is so
hungry and tired. How can we meet their
needs? We don’t have any food. Perhaps we can find a few items to feed a few
people, but not much more than that. The people have so many needs. We don’t
have the answers to their questions. We
can’t fill the longing in their hearts.
Imagine a similar
situation here at our parish with all of us gathered at the mass of the
anointing, like we did here in our parish center a couple weeks ago. We came to Jesus in the Eucharist and in the
sacrament of anointing, we came to him with all of our hunger and our
yearnings, in all of the ways we need healing in our lives. Yet, imagine if at the end of mass, Natalie
and Marian coming out and saying: “Goodbye everyone – you go home and get
something to eat now. We don’t have any
food today. We don’t have anything to fill
your hunger, to satisfy your needs. You
go now, and we’ll see you at next month’s healing mass.” But, in reality, Natalie and Marian do the opposite. They have a wonderful meal prepared each time
we gather for the mass of the anointing and at many other parish
events. The meals that we share together
are symbolic of Christian hospitality and of a warm welcome, of the heavenly
banquet that God prepares for us, of the Eucharist that feeds us on so many
different levels.
In our adult
Sunday school class in Yazoo City, we’re watching a DVD on the Eucharist by
Father Robert Barron, a popular priest who teaches up at
Mundelein seminary in the Archdiocese of Chicago. Father Barron remarks that in this Gospel
story about the hungry crowds, the disciples want to scatter, they want to
disperse, they want to send the people away hungry and unfulfilled. This is the opposite of Jesus and his proclamation
of God’s kingdom, of how he gathers and unifies, of how he brings peace,
fulfillment and healing into our lives.
I’ve told you a
lot of stories about the strange foods and jungle creatures I used to regularly
eat when I was a missionary in South America.
I traveled to one village every weekend in the vast rainforest jungle in
Ecuador to run a small high school and to work with some small community groups
there. After my long journey, I would go
to the church to get set up for my weekend.
Every time I arrived, one of the ladies from the church would come over
with a plate of food they had prepared for me.
Perhaps it would be a small piece of meat with some boiled plantains and
rice – nothing fancy. Indeed, the people
in this village had very little to eat themselves, they struggled to make it
from day to day, but they fed me out of what they had like Jesus did with the
crowds. And I felt their love and
hospitality in the food they brought me.
Many of the images
that are brought to our minds through today’s readings are symbolic of the
Eucharist that we share together. The
Eucharist is the heavenly banquet that God will prepare for us in the end
times, the banquet that the prophet Isaiah invites us to that will satisfy our
deep-seeded hunger and thirst. The
Eucharist is that which Jesus gathers us to, unifying us as the people of God. The Eucharist is that miracle of God’s
abundant grace that we celebrate each day as the Church, the Body of Christ
here on earth. Just as Jesus multiplied
the loaves and the fish to nurture the hungry crowds in body and soul, the Body
and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist nurtures us in the real presence of Christ
among us. Just as Jesus looked at the
crowds with compassion and empathy, Jesus looks at all of us coming to mass
today wanting to satisfy our hunger, wanting to nurture us and to give us
strength through his Body and Blood that was sacrificed for us, that he feeds
us with in this Eucharist.
The miracle of
multiplying the loaves and the fishes is not just some miracle performed by
Jesus 2000 years ago. The truth and
symbolism of this action nurtures our faith today and feeds our souls. May we give pause to recognize the many ways
that God feeds us as we journey through life as Jesus’ disciples.
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