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Fr. Antony Kadavil reflects and comments on the readings at Mbad on the sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time. He says that the readings invite us to become humble instruments in the hands of God by sharing our blessings with our brothers and sisters in need.
2Kings 4: 42-44, Ep 4: 1-6, John 6: 1-15
Homily Anecdote of Departure : A Bag of Rice to Share: From His Experience Mother Teresa tells a story of how the poor are more generous than the rich because they have experienced hunger and poverty. Having learned a poor Hindu family in Calcutta who had been hungry for several days, Mother Theresa visited them and brought a large piece of rice to the mother. She was surprised to see how the mother divided the rice into two equal parts and came out with a package to give it to her Muslim neighbor. When she returned, Mother Teresa asked her why she had done such a generous thing. The woman replied, "My family can handle half of the rice in this bag, my neighbor's family has several children and they are starving." Today's Gospel recounts the story of a little boy who showed this same kind of generosity: by sharing his breakfast (consisting of five barley breads and two fried fish), the instrument in the work of Jesus of a miracle that fed thousands. ( http://frtonyshomilies.com/ )
Introduction: Today's readings invite us to become humble instruments in the hands of God by sharing our blessings with our brothers and sisters in need Miracles can happen by our hands, when we collect and distribute to the needy the food destined for all by our generous God. if we have been blessed with an abundance of earthly bread or with the technical abilities to produce such abundance, then these gifts are for sharing with the hungry When the physical hunger is satisfied, then we are To satisfy the most hungry deep – for love, mercy, forgiveness, fellowship, peace and fulfillment. The first reading tells us how the prophet Elisha, by invoking the power of God, fed a hundred men with twenty barley loaves. This miracle prefigured the Gospel account of the miraculous feeding of Jesus by the crowd that followed him to hear his words. The psalm of today tells us: "The hand of the Lord feeds us, God responds to all our needs." In the second reading St. Paul reminds the Ephesians that Jesus united the Jews and Gentiles, bringing them together as Christians in a faith and a baptism. Therefore, he exhorts them to keep this unity intact as a body and a spirit living as true Christians, " carrying one with the other by love ," in humility If we become such a community, no one will be hungry, and God will respond to the needs of people through the services provided by the members of our community.The miraculous feeding of five thousand people by Jesus, with five loaves of barley and two fish, as described in the Gospel of today. 39, is badociated in the tradition of the Church with the Holy Eucharist. The version of John 's miracle clearly accentuates the Eucharistic allusions when we read it with the miraculous feeding of 100 men by the prophet Elisha in the first reading of today . But unlike Elisha, Jesus himself badumed the divine role, feeding the people with eschatological abundance. The reaction of the people was immediate and unanimous; they interpreted the miracle as a messianic sign and gave Jesus two Messianic titles: " The Prophet" and " the one to come ." This miracle teaches us that God the servant of Elisha and the disciples of Jesus distribute the bread provided by God, thus meeting the needs of the people through the services provided by the members of his community.
First Reading, 2 Kings 4: 42-44, Explained: The First Reading, taken from the Second Book of Kings, prepares us for today's Gospel # He who described the miraculous feeding of more than five thousand people by Jesus using a gift of five barley loaves Through the intermediary of the prophet Elisha, God fed about 100 people with 20 loaves of bread. Both incidents tell us that God works wonders through ordinary people and responds to people's needs through the services provided by members of the community. The Church Fathers recognized this miraculous food of Elisha as a type and a prelude to the feeding of Jesus by the crowds in today's gospel. an event that foreshadowed his own gift of the Eucharist that continues to nourish believers. The story of Elisha relates to Moses, the prophet who nourished the people of God in the wilderness (see Exodus 16). Moses prophesied that God would send a prophet like him (see Deuteronomy 18: 15-19). The crowd in today's Gospel, witness of His miracle, identifies Jesus as this prophet. (Scott Hann) The twin readings challenge the Church to perpetuate the tradition of Elisha and Jesus by becoming, with his power, a purveyor and multiplier of bread for the poor.
Second Reading, Ephesians 4: 1-6, Explained : Saint Paul, in Prison, Reminds the Ephesians that Jesus united the Jews and Gentiles, bringing them together as Christians in one faith and a baptism . Therefore, he advises them to keep this unit intact as a body and a spirit living as true Christians " carrying one with the other in love , with humility, gentleness, patience, and peace . Currently, we are the community Paul describes. We are called to feed the hungry today. As members of the body of Christ, we must remember that miracles can come through our prayers, our gifts and our hands when we help to distribute to the hungry the food for all of us by our generous God. In this Eucharist we are one body with the Lord, as we hear in today 's Epistle
Evangelical Exegesis: The Background: The withdrawals of Jesus in the wilderness were probably meant to provide rest and reflection for Jesus and his disciples, and a time for him to teach them privately. Moreover, the withdrawal could have allowed them to avoid the danger of those who were hostile to him, especially after the execution of John the Baptist. The gospel of today shows us such an incident. Here we see Jesus trying in vain to retreat with his Apostles from the crowds of Capernaum while sailing across the Sea of Galilee. Jesus landed near a remote village called Bethsaida Julius, where the Jordan flows into the northern end of the Sea of Galilee and faces a large crowd of people who pursued it around the sea on foot. His immediate reaction was deep compbadion. Near the place where they had landed, there was a small grbady plain, and there he began to heal the sick among them and to instruct them for a long time. This was the scene of the five thousand miraculous feeding as described in today's Gospel.
A great miracle before a multitude: The miracle of the 5,000 diet is found in the four gospels, although the context and emphasis vary. It is the only miracle, other than the resurrection, that is narrated in all the gospels, a fact that speaks of its importance to the early church. Compare Mark 6: 35-44 with Matthew 14: 13-21, Luke 9: 12-17, and John 6: 1-14. Matthew says there were about 5,000 men, not counting women and children. This miraculous feeding in the wilderness had precedents: Moses, Elijah, and Elisha had fed the poor. The present miracle is particularly like that which Elisha accomplished in 2 Kings 4: 42-44. In both cases, unlike the desert manna, there were leftovers, because everyone had enough and more than enough. This miracle is therefore greater than the manna of exodus. The history of the Gospel should be treated as a testimony of the power of God and an implicit statement of the deity of Jesus. It also shows how, to this day, Jesus gives his disciples the means to continue his works of compbadion. We can consider the incident both as a miracle of divine providence and as a messianic sign in which Jesus multiplies bread and fish to feed his hungry listeners. The lesson for every Christian is that, however unforgivable, his tasks can be accomplished with the help of God because "nothing is impossible for God" (Luke 1:37). St. Augustine looks at this miracle that aims to lead the human spirit through the visible things to the perception of the divine: "Christ did what God does, just as God multiplies a few seeds in a whole field of wheat. Christ multiplies the five loaves in his hands – for there is power in the hands of Christ, these five loaves were like seeds, not because they were thrown on the earth, but because they were thrown into the earth. they were multiplied by the one who made the earth, this miracle was presented to our senses to stimulate our spirit, it was put before our eyes to engage our understanding and thus to amaze us before the God we do not see in because of his works that we see. "
A messianic sign or a generous sharing miracle? The traditional teaching of the Church is that Jesus literally multiplied bread and fish to feed his hungry listeners. At the beginning of this century in his clbadic book, The Quest for the Historical Jesus Schweitzer suggested that what we have here is a "sacrament" rather than a complete meal. All the people received was the smallest crumb of food, and yet, one way or another, with Jesus present among them, that was enough. This, however, does not explain the baskets full of leftovers from the five loaves and two fish. Some biblical scholars even suggest that the "miracle" can be interpreted as the success of Jesus in making sure that a group of selfish people share their personal provisions with others. According to this interpretation, it seems strange and abnormal that the crowd made this nine-mile expedition to such a desolate village without eating anything. When people went on a trip, they usually took their food with them in a small basket called kophinah or in a larger wicker basket. But if they had done it in this case, everyone might not have wanted to share what he had brought with the others. If this were the case, Jesus could deliberately have accepted the five loaves and fished the boy to set a good example for the crowd. Pushed by this example of generosity, the crowd could have done the same thing: thus, there could have been enough for all. This view was proposed by the famous preacher-novelist Lloyd C. Douglas, author of The Robe. This rather fanciful explanation can still be considered a "miracle": it could show how the example of the boy answering Jesus "miraculously" turned a crowd of selfish men and women into a community generous sharers. However, he militates against the Divinity of Jesus, the True God and the True Man. For it is the literal interpretation of the miracle that makes the miracle a messianic sign with Eucharistic reference, which points to the divinity of Christ and offers an example of God's love for us, expressed in an overabundant generosity.
Eucharist: No biblical scholar doubts that the six miracles of bread in the gospels relate to the Eucharist. The multiplication of the loaves is the only miracle of the public ministry of Jesus narrated in the four Gospels with Eucharistic connotations. The early Christian community saw in this event an anticipation of the Eucharist. John uses this story in his gospel to present Jesus' deep and extensive reflection on the Eucharist and the Bread of Life. The Cycle B lectionary selected portions of Chapter 6 of John for five Sundays to remind us of Jesus' teaching on the Eucharist. The Eucharistic coloration of the multiplication of bread is clear in the blessing, the rupture and the blessing of Jesus . Thus, the miracle itself becomes a symbol of the Eucharist, the sacrament of unity. Sharing broken bread is a sign of a community that should share and provide abundantly for the needs of its members. Our word Eucharist is derived from the Greek language and describes an action: "to give thanks". In the Eucharist, we are nourished by Jesus Himself, and we are sent to serve others. Matthew invites us to see this miracle as a type or symbol explaining the meaning of the sacrament. The story of the multiplication of breads and fish recalls a particular aspect of the Mbad. In this miracle, Jesus turns the offering of a young boy of five barley loaves and two fish. In the offertory of the Mbad, we present the fruits of our works, represented by bread and wine. These gifts, which God first gave us as grain and fruit, are given to God in our offering of thanks. In turn, God transforms our gifts, making this bread and wine the body and blood of Jesus. We also offer ourselves in this exchange, and we, too, are transformed by the Eucharist. This daily breaking of the bread also had eschatological badociations: it was an anticipation of the messianic banquet . John's description of this event anticipates the messianic banquet of heaven, while the crowd sits in rows to enjoy a large free meal. Whenever we celebrate the Eucharist we anticipate the eternal banquet of heaven. The Eucharist of the Church today combines sacrificial and eschatological badociations. In the recent past, the focus has been more on the sacrificial aspect than on the eschatological aspect, but the imbalance is now repaired.
Messages of Life : # 1: Give them something to eat. " The history of the Gospel teaches that Jesus responds to the most basic human need, hunger, with generosity and compbadion." Today's readings also tell us that God really cares about His people and that there is enough and more than enough for everyone.Studies show that the world today produces enough food grains to provide for every human being on the planet 3,600 calories per day, excluding foods such as tubers, vegetables, beans, nuts, fruits, meats and fish.For the past 25 years, food production has outpaced World population of about 16% .This means that there is no good reason for a human being in the world of today to be hungry.But even in a rich country like the United States, one in five children grow up in poverty, three million of people are homeless and 4000 unborn babies are aborted each day. "The problem of feeding the world's hungry people lies in our lack of political will, our biased economic system for the rich, our militarism, and our tendency to blame the victims of social tragedies such as famine. the fact that people are undernourished, so it is necessary to create a sense of responsibility in individuals, especially those who are more blessed with the goods of this world. "(Pope John XXIII, Mater and Magistra (1961) 157-58). # 2 : We must commit to sharing with others and working with God to communicate his compbadion . It is too easy to blame God, too easy to blame governments, too easy to see these things as problems of other people. They are our problems too. It is the meaning of the Eucharist that we celebrate here today. In other words, as Christians, we must commit to sharing what we have with others and working with God to communicate his compbadion to all. God is a caring Father and He wants our cooperation to be part of His care for all of us, His children. That's what early Christians did, generously sharing what they had with the needy. They believed that everything they needed to live a fulfilling life was already there, in the gifts and talents of the people around them. People of our time should be encouraged to share, even when they think they have nothing to offer. All that we offer through Jesus will have a life effect in those who receive it. We are shown two attitudes in the history of the Gospel: that of Philip and that of Andrew (John 6: 7-9). Philip said, in effect: "The situation is hopeless, nothing can be done." But Andrew's attitude was: "I will see what I can do, and I will trust Jesus to do the rest." Let us have the attitude of Andrew
# 3: God blesses those who share their talents, with a commitment full of love. This is illustrated by Mother Teresa who went to serve the slum dwellers of Calcutta with only twenty cents in her pocket. When she died forty-nine years later, God had transformed these twenty hundred originals into eighty schools, three hundred mobile clinics, seventy dispensaries for leprosy, thirty homes for the dying, thirty homes for abandoned children, and forty a thousand volunteers from around the world to help it. We can begin our humble efforts of "sharing" in our parish by participating in charities carried out by organizations such as the St. Vincent DePaul Society, the Knights of Columbus and many other volunteer groups. We can say, "I do not have enough money or talent to make a difference". But we must remember that the little boy in the story had only five barley breads and two dried fish. The Bible guarantees that every believer has at least one gift from the Holy Spirit. It's our "little fish". Maybe our "fish" is not money, but a talent or ability that God has given us. We all have something. If you have never trusted God with your time, or your talent, or your treasure … all your resources … it's time to start. Let us offer ourselves and all we have to God saying, "This is what I am and what I have Lord; Use me; use it. "And He will bless us and bless our offering, amplifying it beyond our expectations, when we give what we have to God, and ask him to bless him, it is then that the miracle happens, we too can accomplish wonders in our own time and place, practicing the four "Eucharistic" verbs of Jesus: Let us take humbly and generously what God gives us, bless by offering to other people in the love of God, away from our own needs and interests for the sake of others, abandon it with a joyful gratitude to God who has blessed us with so much We are called by Christ to become the Eucharist we receive at this altar: give thanks for what we have received by sharing these gifts – our talents, our riches, we – to make our own miracles to create communities of faith oyeuse (Father Antony Kadavil).
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