[audio from Sun., 12pm Mass]
[audio from Sat., 5pm Mass]
If you haven’t yet
noticed the surrounding area of our parish grounds and hilly areas especially,
take a look after Mass when you return to your car. You will notice a beautiful landscape and cultivated
area along the hills. Yesterday, about
100 parishioners gathered to cut weeds with their weedwhackers, raked dried up
grass, even to set up a first aid station if needed. I still have my band aid right here on my
left arm from the nurses of Health & Wellness Ministry that treated my
minor scape from removing old branches. But
perhaps a memorable moment was one of our altar servers offering everyone some
delicious Halo-Halo drinks, a Filipino sweet drink. And boy oh boy, one has not lived fully until
one has had a Halo-Halo drink!
In a sense, the Halo-Halo
drink and the gathering of our parishioners for Parish Clean-Up Day [are
related to] today’s readings on the miracle of the loaves and fish. As important as earthly food and earthly
drink are to a gathering, let us reflect on how even more true it is for us to
gather around our spiritual food and spiritual drink in the Holy
Eucharist! The external beauty that one sees around the parish is a type of image
of the internal beauty of a soul that
receives the Bread of Life at Mass.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus
performed a real miracle of feeding over 5,000 people. Philip’s answer to Jesus’s test question is
important because it shows that the 5,000 truly did not have any food hidden or
stored anywhere. Philip basically said
half of one year’s salary was not enough to pay for all the people that were
there. The multiplication of the loaves
and fish was a real, true and literal miracle.
I.
This is the first of
two messages for us today: Jesus takes the little that we have to offer, and He
multiplies them. You and I might say, “Well,
I only have a little to give,” or “That was the best that I could do for God,” (etc.,)
and yet today’s Gospel reminds us that our so-called little to give when given
with great love is worth more than
all the gold of the world. St. Therese
of Lisieux, France, once said, “Our Lord
does not look at the greatness of our actions, or even at the difficulty, but
at the love with which we do them.”
REPEAT
The Little Way of St. Therese the Little Flower
shows us how to live this Gospel passage today. We might say, “I can only do this amount of
time for the church” or “I can only contribute this amount to the parish
because we’re financially not making it with our bills” or “I don’t have great
talent to speak or talent to run a ministry” but yet when we give our time, our
talent, and our treasure with love –
the love for God and love for our neighbor, this pleases the tender Heart of
Jesus. This Little Way is seen the innocence
of that unnamed child from the Gospel who St. Andrew said had only a few
pieces of bread and fish. (I mean, a
loaf of bread in the US costs $1 and the 2 fish costs 50 cents. That kid [in the Gospels] had six bucks for
5,000 people. Mathematically, it doesn’t
make sense, but with the eyes of faith and love it does.)
And so the
question for us today is this: What are your 5 loaves and 2 fish that you give
to God? PAUSE
What gift
do you have to give to Jesus, esp. at Mass today? PAUSE
If we look
at the 100 parishioners who gathered to give their 5 loaves of their time and
only 2 fish of their talent to invest in their parish, we see how God
multiplied these into love, into fellowship and koinonia (communion).
II.
This leads to the
second point: The little that the earth produces, the fruit of the vine and
work of human hands are offered in the Offertory at Mass reflected in the bread
and wine, the little that is given from all
of us at the Offertory, is transubstantiated, it is truly and literal changed, no
longer bread but it is multiplied into the literal and true Body and Blood of
Jesus Christ. The miracle of the
loaves and fish is a foreshadow of the Most Blessed Sacrament that Jesus would
leave, this mystery of love.
Remember, a sacrament
is: (1) outward sign POINT FORWARD (2)
instituted by Christ POINT UP (3) to give me grace POINT TO SELF. They are sacred signs or mysteries. And of the Seven Mysteries given by Jesus
Christ to us His Church, the Eucharist is the highest and most blessed of the
signs and sacraments of his love.
It is not a
symbol. Protestants believe that it is a
symbol. Interestingly, all Christians up
until 1,500 years after Christ believed that the Eucharist was literally,
truly, substantially, and really the Body of Jesus. It was through mainly Fr. Martin Luther (who
was a former Catholic priest that left the Church), Martin Luther who started a
movement that led to 40,000 broken Protestant denominations, all/most of which
deny the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. But in the Bible, Jesus did not say, “This is
a symbol of my body.” Rather, Jesus
said, ‘This is my body.’
This is why it is
important for us to invite our separated Protestant brothers and sisters to
become Catholic, to return home to the one true Church established by Jesus
Christ. I gently and warmly invite
anyone here who is Protestant to consider being Catholic. Jesus said that unless ones eat His flesh and
drinks his blood one does not have life.
We are starting a new RCIA process in a few months for adults. This is a
program for those interested in being Catholic.
[If time permits, insert joke about RCIA.] We also need parishioners to serve as sponsors
for these adults.
If we are committed bringing
Jesus to others, then we want to invite others at the Table of the Lord and the
Altar of Sacrifice and to join in our Holy Communion, the source of our unity,
the source of our love for the poor. This,
btw, is why Catholics cannot receive communion at Protestant communion
services: Not just because it would imply a unity that does not yet exist, but
because Protestant ministers do not have the power that a Catholic priest does to
change ordinary bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.
III.
In closing, let us take
our own little 5 loaves and 2 fish – whether it was a few hours for Parish
Clean Up Day serving Halo-Halo, or giving to the Parish Capital Campaign, or
serving in a parish ministry – and offer them as a gift to Jesus with
love. [Let us offer Jesus 5 loaves and 2
fish of all our labors and works, our disappointments and successes, our
sorrows and joys, and let us have Jesus multiply them and feed us, as it is
written in the Responsorial Psalm that we sang today, “The hand of the Lord
feed us; He answers all our needs.”
In summary, dear
brothers and sisters, let us invite others to join the fellowship of the Church
and receive Jesus’ Body and Blood as the first Christians did. Let us others to receive the Bread of Life,
which is Our Daily Bread. Let us the
words of Jesus in today’s Gospel, “Have the people recline” be our words to
them. Let us “recline” here at weekly
Sunday Mass. And let us be fed by Jesus
the Good Shepherd who feeds his sheep today through the Eucharist (blessed, broken
and shared for the life of the world). Amen.
“Miracle of Multiplying
Loaves and Fish Foreshadows the Eucharist; A Friendly Invitation for Protestants
to Come Home to the Catholic Church” (Homily #139)
By Deacon Dennis
Purificacion
17th Sunday in Ordinary Time
(July 29, 2018)
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