Homily for Ordinary Time 17 - July 25, 2021

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 17

July 25, 2021

Fed by the Lord

 

            Those of you who are parents know the great disaster you must endure when your children are three or four years old…and they try to pour their milk for the first time. You can see it coming from across the kitchen – the toddler reaches for the gallon jug, and in slow-motion you cry out, “Nooooo!” but it’s too late – the milk goes crashing all over the table, on the floor, all over their clothes.

            But you can’t blame the child – because it’s only natural for kids to want to feed themselves. That’s what adults do – they are able to make their own food and provide for themselves.

            But the Lord wants us to become like little children, and He wants to be the one to feed us. In today’s Gospel He feeds the five thousand with physical food, but in the next couple weeks we are going to hear about how this miracle sets the stage for the deeper, better kind of food: the Eucharist.

            The Lord feeds us spiritually in many ways, but the most profound way is through the Mass. In fact, the Catechism calls the Mass “the Lord’s Supper” and the “Wedding Feast of the Lamb”. It is Jesus Who feeds us directly at every Mass, because He is the real celebrant of every Mass. It is not “Fr. Joseph’s Mass” but Christ’s Mass, through Fr. Joseph as His vessel.

            One of the reasons the priest wears vestments is so that the priest disappears, and only Christ appears. Also, consider: when the priest says, “The Lord be with you”, your response is NOT “and also with you,” as if you were talking to the priest. Rather, you say, “and with your Spirit” – meaning, “with the Spirit of Christ that dwells in you”. When a priest celebrates Mass, he becomes an “altar Christus” – another Christ – because it is really Christ Who feeds us in the Sacraments, not the priest.

            So how do we get fed by Christ in every Mass? Two ways. First, through the Scriptures. I have a friend from college, who is now a nun in Tennessee, and we have been pen-pals for many years – we actually send each other handwritten letters a few times each year. I have kept all of her letters from 10+ years ago, and like to re-read them, because they remind me of our friendship. How much more should we treasure the Scriptures, which are letters from our Father?

            At least one saint became a saint because of the readings at Mass. In the late 300s, a young man from Egypt named Anthony was on his way to Mass. He had just inherited hundreds of acres of fertile farmland from his parents, and was rather wealthy. He arrived at church late, just in time to hear the priest reading from Matthew’s Gospel: “And Jesus said, ‘If you wish to be perfect, go sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in Heaven.’” Anthony immediately realized that Christ was talking to him, so he went and sold his property and gave the money to the poor. The following week, he was again late to Mass, and as he walked in, the priest was reading a different part of Matthew’s Gospel when Jesus said, “Do not have any anxiety about tomorrow.” Anthony realized he was not being completely generous with God, and he went back and gave away the remainder of his wealth and moved into a cave in the desert where he spent the rest of his life in prayer and penance. He is now known as St. Anthony the Abbot, who was transformed because of the Scriptures he heard proclaimed at Mass.

            In addition to the Scriptures, we are fed through the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the “source and summit” of our Catholic Faith – it is the source of every grace and blessing, and it is the summit because the Eucharist is literally union with God Himself, which is the goal of the Christian life. It grieves my heart to read studies that say that 60% of Catholics do not believe that Jesus Christ is truly present in the Holy Eucharist. My friends, I believe with all my heart that He is truly present – and I am willing to sacrifice my life for that belief. After all, if this were just a symbol, why would I become a priest to serve people bread on Sunday mornings? I could do that at IHOP and make a lot more money. No, this is not merely bread – it is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. He Himself said so; the Church has always taught it; and over the centuries, many Eucharistic miracles have strengthened our faith in His Real Presence, such as the recent Eucharistic Miracle of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where in 1996 a Eucharistic host started to miraculously bleed.

            So, if Christ feeds us with His Word and His Body at every Mass, what’s our takeaway? Two things in response. First, we must never pass up an opportunity to attend Mass. At our deathbed, our greatest comfort and consolation will be how many Masses we have attended with devotion. As Catholics we are obligated to attend Mass every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation, but even more than a requirement, it is a gift! If the Pope invited you to lunch, you would drop everything and go. How much more so when Christ invites you to a banquet in which He is the host and He is the Food. Even on vacation or traveling, we can always attend Mass wherever we go.

            The second response is to be prepared when we do attend Mass. We wouldn’t attend lunch with the Pope with dirty hands or shorts and flip-flops. Likewise, at the Banquet of Christ, we should make sure that our soul is clean with Confession, our attire is presentable to come into the presence of Almighty God, we arrive early, and we are attentive to His Words and hungry for Him.

            St. John Vianney once said, “Put all the good works in the history of the world next to one Mass, and it will be like a grain of sand next to a mountain.” All of our good works are just that – the works of men and women – but the Mass is the work of God. It is He Who feeds us through His Word and His Body – let us always hunger for the food that we can only receive at Mass!