Come you who are thirsty, come to the water. You don’t need to bring money. There is no cost. Come, I will renew you with my covenant, says the Lord.
These words come from the 55th chapter of Isaiah. The prophet brings a message from God to bring comfort to the people of Israel in the midst of their exile in Babylon. They were physically separated from the promised land that God gave them. They were separated from their worship of God in the Temple in Jerusalem. Spiritually, they felt depleted. God promises to renew them and to restore the promises of his covenant with them.
Water was a powerful metaphor for the people of Israel. They live in a dry land. Today, the country of Israel has such a scarcity of water that they get 80% of their drinking water from desalination plants, which extracts treated water from the salt water taken from the sea, a very complex and expensive process. With the problems the city of Jackson has had with its drinking water for a very long time, perhaps we who live in the Jackson metro area do not take water for granted anymore. I have told you how for the four years total that I lived in Ecuador and Guinea West Africa that I had to get water from a river or from a well, water that had to be filtered and treated in order for me to use it. During those years, I had to take a bath with a wash clothe and a small bucket of water from the river or from the well. To this day, every time I take a shower, I appreciate that luxury and say a prayer of thanksgiving to God, because I appreciate the gift of water that God gives to us.
Hearing this invitation from Isaiah to come to the water, how do we answer on a practical level in our lives, especially those of us who are practicing Catholics and practicing disciples of Christ? How do we come to the water and how do we receive it? To approach these waters each day, it starts with us cooperating with God’s grace.
On Friday, we celebrated the feast day of St Ignatius of Loyola. Today, we celebrate one of the men who was one of the original founders of the Jesuit religious order with St Ignatius: St Peter Faber. I thought of Peter Faber when I thought about us cooperating with God’s grace in our lives in today’s reading from Isaiah. Born in 1506 in the Savoy region of Europe in the western Alps mountain range, Peter Faber tended his father’s flock as a shepherd during his youth. He had little formal schooling while group up since he can from a humble family. He traveled to Paris to study to be a priest, where he became friends with St Ignatius and Francis Xavier. Even though he lacked formal schooling, he had a brilliant mind. He served as a Latin tutor to Ignatius during their time in the university. He was a very astute spiritual advisor. Ignatius considered Peter Faber the best director of his spiritual exercises. In a time of great tension between Protestants and Catholic during the Reformation, Faber worked toward dialogue and patience. He spent a lot of his ministry in Europe promoting parish missions and Catholic renewal. He died of a fever in 1546 at the young age of 40. Pope Francis, who was also a member of the Jesuits, was a great admirer of Peter Faber, canonizing him as a saint in 2013.
As a spiritual director, Peter Faber advised others to consecrate themselves to whatever small tasks that they could accomplish using the smallest, most immediate grace that God provided provided. He believed that the Lord would make up for human shortcomings to accomplish extraordinary things.
One final thought about today’s message from Isaiah. As Isaiah invites those who are spiritually hungry and thirsty to come and drink and eat well of the rich fare, this foreshadows Jesus miraculous feeing of the multitude with the multiplication of the loaves and the fish at the Eucharist, which we hear of in today’s Gospel, as well as Jesus offering himself up as the bread of life in the Last Supper with his apostles. The eucharist is seen as the fulfillment of this spiritual food and drink that God offers through Isaiah.
As I wrote this homily last Sunday evening, I thought about the week I had just finished, how I celebrated Mass that week the Eucharist on 11 different occasions outside of the Masses at my home parishes in Clinton and Raymond. The Eucharist is at the center of so much that I do as a priest. Is still ask myself: outside of these liturgies, how am I living out the spirit of the Eucharist in all that I do each day? It is important for us to see ourselves as Eucharistic missionaries who bring the Eucharistic spirit to others.
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