Ordinary Time 18 - Food for the Poor

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 18

August 4, 2024

Food for the Poor

 

            As we continue to read through John Chapter 6 – the Bread of Life Discourse – a small detail stood out to me from last week’s Gospel. What food did Jesus multiply? It wasn’t caviar or filet mignon. It wasn’t even nice fluffy white bread. It was barley loaves and dried fish – do either of those sound appetizing to you? Probably not – because it was the food for the poor.

            In our overabundance, we often forget that for the vast majority of human history, food was very hard to come by. To make a loaf of bread was a huge effort: till the land, sow the barley, water it, harvest it, grind it, bake it. So this promise of free food from the Lord was a wonderful thing!

            But Jesus needs to remind them that their poverty will not be satisfied with more bread. Rather, there is a deeper poverty – the poverty of lacking God, of being separated from Him – that can only be cured by the Lord Jesus Himself. As Mother Teresa put it, “The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty. There's a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.”

            Despite our twenty-first century luxuries and distractions, we too are quite poor. In fact, every human being of every age has always struggled with the ancient poverty and brokenness of the human race. Why is it that, despite all the love our spouse can give us, we never feel like it’s enough? Why are we still restless and unhappy when we have every device to distract us? Despite all of our efforts to plan out our lives, why do we still worry about the future? I doubt that any person in this church today has their life completely together – probably all of us, myself included, would say that some aspect of our life is a mess and broken. This is the fundamental poverty deep within our soul – we long for love, for meaning and purpose, for strength, for peace.

            And we won’t find these things in a red Solo cup, or a bottle. We won’t find them in the bedroom or on the Internet. We won’t find these things in another social media “like”, our plastic surgery, or our paycheck. We won’t find them in the lust, greed, addictions, or distractions that consume our days. Filling that fundamental poverty with any of these things will just leave us more broken. Rather, I would like to propose that everything we are searching for is contained within this small, white Host of the Eucharist.

            You may have seen that the Church in America recently concluded a four-day Eucharistic congress in Indianapolis. But leading up to that event, there were four processions across our country with the Eucharist, where it was held aloft in a monstrance and processed through the streets. I was tremendously blessed to carry the Eucharist for a mile through downtown Stamford, and it moved me to tears to see people drive by and make the sign of the Cross, or kneel along the sidewalk, to welcome the Eucharistic king.

            In one particular town along the route, a group of young homeless men in Ohio saw what was going on and joined the procession. When it reached the church, they took the priest around back to the dumpster – and proceeded to dump all of their drugs and paraphernalia in the dumpster, promising to live a new life. Another time, they brought the Eucharist into a prison, where the men attended Mass and then processed around the prison grounds. The antidote to the brokenness and poverty of our life is the Eucharist – Jesus Christ, truly present.

            In fact, the early Church fathers called the Eucharist the “medicine of immortality”. Our brokenness was caused by the disobedient eating of our first parents, leading to Original Sin. Our healing, then, comes from obedient eating of the One Who said, “Do this in memory of Me.” Now, to be clear, taking medicine works if you’re sick, not if you’re dead. If a soul is dead through mortal sin, they need a different kind of medicine – the medicine of Confession. But once a soul is in the state of grace, our daily poverty and fundamental hungers are filled only with the Lord, Who gives Himself to us in the Eucharist. Never let a week pass you by without coming to the Eucharistic Lord at Mass! Spend time with Him outside of Mass, too, in a silent Church or in Eucharistic Adoration. It is He whom you seek when you look for love, meaning, strength, and peace!

            I close with the powerful words of JRR Tolkien. In addition to being the writer of the “Lord of the Rings” series, he was a very faithful Catholic who would often give spiritual advice to his sons. Here is an excerpt from one of his letters:

            Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament. . . . There you will find romance, glory, honor, fidelity, and the true fulfillment of all your loves on earth.

            Out of our poverty and fundamental hunger, there is One alone Who can satisfy: the Eucharist – the Real Presence of Jesus.