Homily on
Sunday XVIII, Year A
Belmont,
03rd August 2014
by
Dom Alex Echeandia
“Jesus
took pity on them and healed the sick”
You may have heard
that God cares for everyone and sustains everything, and indeed it is true. God
opens wide His hands and grant our desires. However, sometimes it can seem that
God does not care at all. We hear in the news how innocent people, including children,
are dying in Gaza .
Where is God in all of that?, one may say. God’s care for us becomes puzzling
to our understanding. It is true that our understanding is limited, but God’s
love is not.
Our disappointment
with God lacks an understanding of God’s ways. In these situations God is even
closer than ever. God suffers with those who suffer and experiences need with
those in need. It is what Jesus tells us about the last judgement: “I was
hungry, thirsty, naked, in prison and without a home.” God is very close to
those who suffer. As Saint Paul
tells us today, that nothing can come between us and the love of Christ.
God really does care
and suffer with our struggles. It is expressed in today’s gospel. God’s care
for us is shown in a miracle, a miracle by which we may learn about such love
of God that He offers. However, we are not only shown what God is and
does. The Scriptures also teach us about
ourselves. Jesus as Teacher not only shows us his mercy and love. He does not
only teach us about Himself. He also teaches us about ourselves. We sometimes
misbehave with God and our neighbour by way of selfishness, desires for power
and comfort.
Let us see what
happened in that desolate place by the sea. There were thousands of hungry
people who were fed miraculously by God.
It shows how God cares. Miracles essentially are there to show God’s
action and to bring us closer to God. A miracle teaches us to care.
This morning as we
sit in church many people in Gaza are suffering without a place to go. They
don’t even know if they will be alive the following morning. It is when the
Gospel makes sense in our lives to teach us how to care. When Jesus was
informed by the disciples about the lack of food, Jesus’ first reaction was:
“You give them something to eat”; “you look after them”, “you provide what your
neighbour needs most.” We can easily look away. However, God calls us to look
again and offer our gifts to others, even a greeting or a smile. Small efforts
towards others will indeed be multiplied by God to the point of producing so
much that others may collect the remaining food- up to twelve baskets! Love
must be shared; that love that comes from God and is expressed in so many
different ways.
Christ as the good
teacher and shepherd shows us the way to be a Christian in the world. Our
desire for comfort tempts us to see God in our own image rather than us in His.
We prefer to keep God within us and within our home, indoors for nobody else.
It is an easier thing to do rather than going with Him outdoors in order to
offer our loaves of bread and fish, even the most insignificant thing we have
however valuable.
Out of our
selfishness, God invites us to prefer the way of koinonia, a communion that lets God approach others through us. We
are free to follow Him because Christ is a shepherd on the hill and not simply
a keeper of creatures in zoos. As in Paradise ,
God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden. He also wants now to walk with you
and each of us in the company of our neighbour. And in order to be guided by
our Lord, let us feed our lives from the True Bread, from Jesus’ own Body and
Blood, as we celebrate the Banquet of Love, the Holy Eucharist, so that His
love may expand in us in this earthly life.
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