Come, you who are thirsty. Come to the
water. Quench your thirst. Satisfy
your hunger. It doesn’t matter if you’re
poor or if you can’t pay. Come to me in
your need and in your poverty.
Isaiah spoke these words to the people of
ancient Israel in the midst of their exile from their promised land. They were poor, hungry, and thirsty. They were broken, confused, and with little
hope. Through the words of the prophet Isaiah, the Lord promises them a banquet
that will satisfy their hunger. Isaiah
spoke to those with physical hunger and physical poverty. But they had other types of hunger as
well. They hungered for a return to the promised
land, to the Temple in Jerusalem. They
hungered to make right their relationship with God, to renew their covenant
with him, to connect with the divine. They hungered for peace, reconciliation,
and wholeness in the midst of a broken world.
Isaiah spoke to the people in words that met them in their harsh
reality.
Many centuries after Isaiah’s prophecy,
Jesus encountered a people who also had a deep hunger. A great crowd had
gathered around him, traveling a long distance on foot. They came to hear his proclamation of God’s
kingdom, to be in his presence, to see first-hand what the people were saying
about him. Jesus looked into their eyes,
recognizing their hunger. He had pity for the deep longing they had to connect
to God.
We look out today, and so many of us have
that same type of deep hunger. Those of
us here at mass today gather around the table of the Lord with that hunger deep
inside of us. In the midst of our hunger
and longing, we see how our spiritual leaders in the Church are trying to
address that hunger, just as Jesus addressed it in his day. Bishop Kopacz joked about how he was up here
last weekend for his monthly visit to Tupelo.
He has been Bishop of Jackson since February, and he has been here to
visit our wonderful city 7 times since then - for deanery meetings,
confirmation, masses, and to comfort us as we recover from the tornado. His warmth, his leadership, and his presence
with us reflects the love and concern he has for us as our shepherd. He wants to address our hunger and our
needs.
Then we have our wonderful Pope
Francis. Francis has spoken out about a
lot of things in the time he has been pope. So many of his words have touched the hunger
and the longing we have within us. At
World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
last summer, the Pope spoke about the need for us to address the issue of
physical hunger in the world, the importance of feeding the poor. However, he
challenges all of us as modern disciples of Christ to not only feed the
physical hunger of the poor, but also to help our brothers and sisters in their
hunger for faith, in their hunger and search to have a family and to follow
their calling in life. One of the strong
messages I get from Pope Francis and from the Gospel today is our calling to
reach out to those around us on our journey of faith in our role in the
proclamation of God’s kingdom. We are
called to be a welcoming and life-giving parish to those who all who come here,
to be a place where we all can live out a life of discipleship and help form
others as disciples as well.
Imagine if we were with that group of
disciples in the crowds with Jesus that day.
We would think: Feeding 5,000 people in the middle of the
wilderness! You’ve got to be
kidding! Impossible! Will never happen! Some of the situations we
are confronted with in life seem impossible and insurmountable, don’t they? But Jesus gave his disciples an invitation, an
opportunity: You yourselves feed the crowd.
Don’t send them away empty! Like
the disciples, we are called to feed the crowd, to trust in God’s word, to
trust in the gifts that Jesus blesses for us, just as he looked up to heaven
that day and blessed the bread and the fish.
Bishop Kopacz mentioned to me last week
how wonderful he thought our celebration was for our 100th
anniversary. He thought our liturgies
last weekend were so appropriate and joyful in celebrating our patron St James
and our anniversary. I as your pastor
have a vision for our parish: I want us to be a life-giving community of faith
here in Tupelo – a beacon of the Good News of Jesus Christ that reaches out to
others, that calls out to them to join us.
As a part of that vision, all of
us are called to think about how we can really get involved in our parish, to think
about how we can share our gifts with others, how we can be warm and
welcoming. The weekend after Labor Day,
just a month away, we are going to have our parish mission. And we are so excited to have such a great
priest coming to our mission this year – Father Burke Masters from the Diocese
of Joliet in Illinois. He was a famous
baseball player at Mississippi State. He
converted to Catholicism when he was a student there, and he has an amazing
faith journey. We are so honored to have
such a wonderful priest giving our mission this year. I want not only to have a big crowd of our
parishioners to attend, but I also want you to invite family and friends to
hear Father Burke speak about Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation The Joy of
the Gospel. We will be getting you more
information about the mission soon – it will be Sept 7, 8, and 9th
in the evening. But we want you to start spreading the word now. We need to reach out to each other, and not
only to those outside our parish community, but those inside our community of
faith as well. If you see someone you don’t
know around you at mass, greet them and introduce yourself.
The miracle of the multiplying the
loaves and the fishes is not just some miracle story performed by Jesus 2000
years ago. The truth and symbolism of
this action nurtures our faith today and feeds our souls. It challenges us and calls out to us. The Lord feeds us in so many ways. We are to
help him feed others through the Good News of the Gospel as well.
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