18th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)  [2 August 2016]

First Reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah (55:1–3)

We have reached the end of the second book of Isaiah, which is entirely focused on the end of the Exile and the return to the Promised Land, and is therefore called ‘the book of the consolation of Israel’. Chapter 54 heralds the long-awaited return, and this chapter specifies the spirit in which we are to return. Four major themes are evoked. The first theme is the gratuitous nature of God’s gifts: ‘Come, buy without paying’. Sometimes, it is precisely this gratuitousness that is the hardest to accept. We tend to think of merits and dignity that must be regained in order to stand before God, whilst mercy bends down to repentant sinners. Isaiah declares: ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways’ (55:8–9).    Voltaire used to say: “God made man in his own image, and man has done him a fine job of it.” He was right, because we sometimes imagine a God with the same feelings as our own – one who takes revenge and punishes – whereas in the Bible, God always shows such an abundance that is entirely free and generous that we might say that in God’s supermarket, everything is always free. But if everything is free, can we do as we please? Certainly not, because if we are touched by God’s love, our hearts change and we begin to resemble him. In a society founded more on commerce than on service, Christians must nurture the kingdom of gratuitousness, for if we stray from the path of gratuitousness, we are far from God’s ways. The second theme is the struggle against idolatry, a temptation that constantly resurfaces. Only God holds the keys to our happiness and freedom, and with Him, everything is given. We simply need to trust. The third theme is listening and trust – ‘Give ear and you shall live’  ‘Give ear and come to me; listen and you shall live’ (55:3). We lend an ear to so much commercial advertising; why, then, does this message from Isaiah – spoken in God’s name and marked by gratuitousness – fail to convince us? The way of gratuitousness stands above our ways of calculation and ‘quid pro quo’. Fourth theme: God’s faithfulness to the Covenant, another key theme in the sermons of Second Isaiah: the exiles feared they would be abandoned by God forever, yet His love is entirely gratuitous and unconditional, and He never calls His Covenant into question; indeed, He renews it at every moment.  

Responsorial Psalm (144/145)

Psalm 144/145 is an alphabetic psalm of praise for the Covenant. This Sunday’s first reading speaks of the gratuitousness and abundance of God’s gifts; this psalm says nothing other than this!  It is an alphabetic, acrostic psalm: it has as many verses as there are letters in the Hebrew alphabet, with each verse beginning with a different letter of the alphabet. This style of composition has a specific, consistent purpose: to express to God the believers’ gratitude for the gift of the Covenant. It is therefore no surprise to find in this psalm a reference to all aspects of the Covenant: the extraordinary discovery of a God who is both almighty and close to humankind. The Book of Wisdom made this clear: ‘You, Lord, who possess power, judge with gentleness; you rule us with great forbearance, for when you wish, you can use your power’ (12:16–18). Even before the Book of Wisdom, other Old Testament texts had powerfully proclaimed God’s greatness and goodness. At the outset, verse 8 of the psalm echoes God’s revelation to Moses on Mount Sinai: ‘The Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness’ (Ex 34:6); the burning bush: Exodus 3:1–6 presents a twofold revelation: God reveals himself to Moses in the burning bush whilst he was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian (cf. Exodus 3:7). He always reveals himself to be compassionate and merciful = literally ‘a heart open to our miseries’, who takes the side of those in distress. Moses, who had previously veiled his face, realises that he need not be afraid. ‘My people’ is a reference to the Covenant with the people dating back to Abraham. Just as God had seen the misery of Abraham, an elderly man without children, so He has seen the misery of His people. In conclusion, this psalm, like the account of the Exodus, is important for the faith of Israel and therefore for our own: it reveals the dual nature of God as both the Wholly Other and the Wholly Near. He is the Wholly Other, to whom one approaches only with awe and reverence, and at the same time the Wholly Near, who sees the misery of his people and raises up a liberator. In the verses chosen from Psalm 144/145 for this Sunday, the emphasis is placed on this tenderness of God, a conviction that forever nourishes the faith of the Jewish people and our own, just as it filled the heart of Jesus of Nazareth.

Second Reading from the Letter of Saint Paul the Apostle to the Romans (8:35, 37–39)

 Nothing can ever separate us from the love of God: this statement brings to a close Chapter 8, which we have been reading for several weeks, in which Paul marvels at God’s love. In Chapter 5 he had said: ‘The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit’ (Rom 5:5). Here he gives free rein to the exultation that fills the hearts of believers when they realise God’s work on their behalf: ‘God, who did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all’ (Rom 8:32). From now on, no one can break the covenant so closely bound between God and us. As the first Eucharistic Prayer of Reconciliation states, ‘with your arms outstretched on the cross, you have drawn between heaven and earth the indelible sign of the covenant’. From now on, every attempt at separation is doomed to failure. Paul takes up one of the major themes of Scripture: the very stake of the lives of the children of Adam is to remain attached to God, without allowing themselves to be separated from him by the Tempter. In the wilderness, Jesus faced the onslaught of the Tempter, who tempted him with power, ease and honours. Peter himself tempted Jesus to flee from the inevitable persecution. But nothing—neither hunger nor the mirages of success—could separate the Son from the Father. In turn, Paul and the other apostles draw from the Spirit of Christ the strength to remain grafted onto him. Paul offers us here a great profession of faith: ‘For I am convinced that neither death nor life… nor anything else will ever be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom 8:38–39). This is not pride, but the certainty of faith: Paul does not for a moment consider that the credit for this faithfulness lies with him. When he states, ‘In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us’, the key word is ‘through’ him. His declaration resembles that of the prophet Isaiah concerning the Servant of God: ‘The Lord God helps me; therefore I shall not be disgraced’ (Isaiah 50:7). 

From the Gospel according to Matthew (14:13–21)

The episode of the multiplication of the loaves follows immediately after the announcement of John the Baptist’s execution. Matthew recounts John’s death and concludes: ‘His disciples went and took his body, buried it, and went to tell Jesus’ (14:12).  Jesus’s first reaction, which appears to be prudence, is to withdraw: “On hearing this, Jesus got into a boat and withdrew to a deserted place by himself” (14:13). But he is immediately overtaken by the crowd’s pleas and “he had compassion on them” – literally, “he was moved to the depths of his being”, as Matthew puts it. Humanly speaking, Jesus commits an act of reckless folly. It was politically imprudent because the wise course of action at that moment would have been to keep a low profile, since his popularity would attract the hatred of the Pharisee leaders; it was folly because it was senseless to believe that five loaves and two fish would be enough to feed such a crowd. The disciples, being realists, pointed this out to him, but Jesus replied, unperturbed: ‘You yourselves give them something to eat’ (14:16). This episode brings to mind the prophet Elisha, in the Northern Kingdom, 800 years earlier, whose story was known to all. In the midst of a famine, a faithful follower had brought an offering of the first fruits of the harvest: twenty barley loaves that would normally have been Elisha’s due, but he, given the circumstances, decided to share them with everyone. Twenty loaves were too many for a single prophet, but they were a pittance for the hungry people around him: the text says there were a hundred people. Elisha had told his servant, ‘Give it to the people to eat’, but the servant could see that the numbers didn’t add up: ‘How can I set this before a hundred people?’.  And the prophet insisted: ‘Give it to the people to eat. For thus says the Lord: “They shall eat and there will be some left over.”’ And the servant distributed it: ‘They ate and there was some left over, according to the word of the Lord’ (2 Kings 4:42–44). In this miracle, too, we note the disparity between the number of diners, the few loaves and fish available, and the amount of leftovers collected. Matthew is keen to point out: ‘They all ate and were satisfied; and they carried away twelve baskets full of the fragments’ (14:20). What do Jesus and Elisha have in common? What is their secret? First of all, both believe that sharing is possible, whatever the number of diners, because both place their trust in God. They also share the mention of the leftovers and the precise statement that ‘everyone ate their fill’. This miracle brings to mind the gift of manna in the Book of Exodus: ‘I will satisfy you with bread, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God’ (Ex 16:12). Jesus, as the evangelist writes, had gone off to a deserted place on the outskirts in search of some peace and quiet, but he agrees to let himself be found, to draw near to the people, and this leads him to commit the ‘foolish recklessness’ I mentioned at the beginning. Disciples of all ages are in turn invited to nurture this reckless folly: in other words, it is enough to have faith to remember that sharing works miracles. And we must learn to rejoice in our own poverty, for it is the privileged place where God acts. When we recognise our powerlessness, we call upon God for help, and this is always the first thing to do. Whilst the first reading, taken from Isaiah, proclaims the abundance and gratuitousness of God’s gifts, Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves is a magnificent illustration of this.

+Giovanni D’Ercole

(Mt 14:13-21)

Jesus wants that contributions, resources and abilities make synergy; that they offer themselves in service and come unite for the life of multitudes (vv.13-15.19).

The Eucharistic gesture - “breaking the existence” - says: new heavens and earth do not correspond to the world in which everyone hastens to reap for himself or his circle, in order to grab the maximum of resources.

Even the Apostles - called by Jesus and still at a safe distance from Him - are not the owners of the Bread, but those who must feed everyone (v.16), to create abundance where it is not.

They must share, not command. And, in order to avoid impoverishment and damage to happiness, they must place themselves in a logic of overcoming.

The Son reflects God’s plan in compassion for the crowds in need of everything. Yet his solution does not fly over us - simply by wiping tears or erasing humiliations.

He invites us to use what we have, although it may seem ridiculous. But He teaches that shifting energies creates prodigious results.

Thus we respond in Christ to the great problems of the world: recovering the condition of ‘viator’ man - being in passing - and sharing goods.

Our real nakedness, the vicissitudes and experience of many brothers, different ones, are resources not to be evaluated with mistrust.

And the Lord disagrees with the idea that each gets off on his own (v.15).

He imposes on his intimates that «the crowds» (plurals) lie down in an atmosphere of abundance (v.19) as did the gentlemen and free people at solemn banquets.

He wants and insists that it is first of all the disciples to serve (v.19), not other slaves.

And perhaps the most astounding detail is that to none of those present imposes preventive gestures of purification, as was customary in selective religiosity.

Before the meal it postulated the ritual ablution: a ceremony that emphasized a sacral detachment between pure and impure.

The only task of the disciples is to distribute Food to be shredded, sifted and assimilated personally, to build a new world.

In order to present ourselves before God, in religion we have a long rigmarole of fulfilments to observe, which sometimes normalise us.

On the journey of Faith, it is the gratuitous Encounter with the Lord that makes us grow and complete, making each one perfect and unconditionally pure.

In this, extracting authentic Pearls; just from our eccentricities character - those that are detached from the millimeter manners.

His Kingdom? Reign of invited and brothers, also disagree. No master or ruler - even if quicker and more able to manage himself.

The Eucharist thus remains an Appeal to real Conviviality [of differences as they are] and an evergreen Call not to be satisfied with individual devotions or with a harmonisable but empty spirituality.

We must not limit ourselves in multiplying Life.

There must be no limits when spreading the ‘nourishment of wisdom’: the five «loaves», that is, the Pentateuch as ‘staple food’…

And two «fishes», that is, the Historical Books and the Prophets, feedings that accompany the Torah.

All to be «broken» for everyone - and shared, for the benefit of each person.

To internalize and live the message:

How does the Eucharistic gesture speak to you of the Revolution of Tenderness, and of your Call by Name through the Church?

[18th Sunday in O.T. (year A)  August 2nd, 2026]

Multiplying by dividing

(Mt 14:13-21)

«Man is a limited being who is himself limitless» (Fratelli Tutti [Brethren All] n.150).

In our hearts we have a great longing for fulfilment and Happiness. The Father has introduced it, He Himself satisfies it - but He wants us to be associated with His work - inside and outside.

The Son reflects God's design in compassion for the crowds in need of everything and - despite the plethora of teachers and experts - lacking any authentic teaching (cf. Mt 9:36).

His solution is very different from that of all 'spiritual' guides, because he does not overlook us with an indirect paternalism (cf. Mt 14:16) that wipes away tears, heals wounds, erases humiliations.

It invites us to make use of what we are and have, even though it may seem ridiculous. But it teaches in no uncertain terms that by shifting energies we achieve prodigious results.

This is how we respond in Christ to the world's great problems: by recovering the condition of the man viator - a being of passage, his essential mark - and sharing goods; not letting everyone make do (v.15).

Our real nakedness, the vicissitudes and the experience of our many brothers and sisters, who are different, are resources not to be evaluated with distrust, "as dangerous competitors or enemies" of our fulfilment (FT no.151).

Not only will the little we bring be enough to satiate us: it will advance for others and with identical fullness of truth, human, epochal [v.17: the particular passage insists on the well-known Semitic symbolism of the number "seven"].

In Christ, everyone can inaugurate a new Time, and Salvation is already at hand, because people gather spontaneously around Him, coming as they are, with the burden of so many different needs.

The new people of God are not a crowd of chosen and pure people. Everyone brings with them problems, which the Lord heals - but healing not with proxy measures (v.16), as if from above or from without.

In short: another world is possible, but through breaking one's own (even miserable) bread and companion (vv.17-19).

An authentic solution, if one brings it out from within, and by standing in the middle - not in front, not at the top (v.15c).

The place of God's revelation was supposed to be the place of lightning, on a "mountain" smoking like a furnace (Ex 19:18)... but finally even Elijah's violent zeal had to recant (1 Kings 19:12).

Even to the pagans, the Son reveals a Father who does not simply erase infirmities (v.14): he makes them understood as a place that is preparing a personal development, and that of the Community.

He imagined that in the time of the Messiah, the lame, the deaf and the blind would disappear (Is 35:5ff.). Golden age: everything at the top, no abyss.

In Jesus - distributed Bread - an unusual fullness of time is manifested, apparently nebulous and fragile, but real and able to reboot everyone, and relationships.

The Spirit of God acts not by descending like lightning from on high, but by activating in us capacities that appear intangible, yet are capable of regrouping our dispersed being, classified as insubstantial - involving the everyday summary - and re-evaluating it.

The Incarnation reweaves our hearts, in dignity and promotion; it truly unfolds, because it not only drags obstacles away: it rests on them and does not erase them at all: thus it overpowers them but transmutes them - posing new life.

Lymph that draws juice and sprouts Flowers from the one muddy, fertile soil, and communicates them. Solidarity to which all are invited, not just those deemed to be in a state of 'perfection' and compactness.

Our shortcomings make us attentive, and unique. They are not to be despised, but taken up, placed in the Son's hands and energised (v.18).

Falls themselves can be a valuable sign: in Christ, they are no longer reductive humiliations, but rather path markers. Perhaps we are not making the best use and investment of our resources.

Thus, collapses can quickly turn into rises - different, not packaged - and a search for total completion in Communion.

Therefore, in the ideal of realising the Vocation and sensing the type of contribution to be made, nothing is better than a living environment that does not clip the wings: a lively fraternity in the exchange of resources, and coexistence.

Not so much to dampen the jolts, but so that we are enabled to build stores of wisdom not calibrated by nomenclature - which everyone can draw on, even those who are different and far from us.

If a shortcoming is found here too, it will be to teach us to be present in the world in (perhaps) other and further directions, or to bring out mission and creative maturity - not to remain fixated on partiality and minutiae.The allusion to the seven foods (multiplied because they are divided) supports the quotations regarding the malleable magma of biblical icons, such as those of Moses and Elijah: figures from the five Books of the Pentateuch [the basic Loaves], plus the two sections of Prophets and Writings [which act as 'companions'].

The first "five" are the essential fullness of food and wisdom for the soul, which is called to proceed beyond the surrounding hedges, breaking through the embankments of the boundary-subjugated mentality.

It is the basic nourishment of the human-divine spirit, to which, however, is added a young and fresh companion food, which precisely involves us (v.17.19).

[As St Augustine said: "The Word of God that is daily explained to you and in a certain sense 'broken' is also daily Bread" (Sermo 58, IV: PL 38, 395). Complete food: basic food and 'companion' - historical and ideal, in code and in deed].

We become in Christ as an actualised and propulsive corpus of sensitive witnesses (and Scriptures!); admittedly reduced, not yet established and lacking in heroic phenomena, but accentuatedly sapiential and practical.

Announcers and sharers without clamorous proclamations of self-sufficiency, never enclosed within archaic fences - always in the making - therefore able to perceive unknown tracks.

And to break the Bread... that is, to be active, to go further, to share the little - to nourish, to overflow (multiplying the listening and the action of God) and to make even the desperate regain esteem.

We are children: like few and little fish (vv.17.19), who do not wallow in competitions that make life toxic - rather: called in the first person to write a singular, empathic and sacred Word-event.

Infants in the Lord, we swim in this different Water - sometimes perhaps outwardly veiled or muddy and murky; finally made transparent if only because it is yielding, compassionate and benevolent.

The old exclusive puddle of religion that does not dare the risk of Faith (v.13) would not have helped us to assimilate the proposal of Jesus the Messiah, Son of God, Saviour - acrostic of the Greek word "Ichtys" (fish: vv.17.19 diminutive).

He is the Father's Initiative-Response, support in the (unethereal) journey in search of the Hope of the poor - of all of us destitute people waiting.

It seems strange, for those of us who have grown accustomed to it: the working Faith has as its emblem the fractional Eucharist, a revolution of sacredness.

Indeed, the purpose of evangelisation is to participate in and emancipate the complete being from all that threatens it, not only in its extreme limitation: also in its everyday action - to the point of seeking communion of goods.

The prodigy is placed after the rejection in Nazareth (Mt 13:53-57), Herod's ambiguous and superstitious questioning (vv.1-2), and the execution of the Baptist (vv.3-12).

In short, the Source and Summit Sign of the community of sons is a creative gesture that imposes a shift in vision and action, an absolutely new eye and gesture.

[In this way, faced with the destitution of the many - caused by the greed of the few - the attitude of the authentic Church does not take pleasure in emblems and fervour, nor in partial calls to distinction].

The breaking of the Bread takes over from the Manna dropped from above in the desert (Mt 14:15; 15:33; Mk 8:4) and entails its distribution - not only in particular situations.

There is no settling, in multiplying life for all.

This is the attitude of the living Body of the thaumaturgic Christ [not the miracle-worker] who feels called to be active in every circumstance.

Grateful adherence must lead us to the gift and sharing of 'bread'.

If it is not punctual alms-giving, external pietism, mannerist welfarism, there is the result:

Women and men will eat, they will remain full, and there will be food left over for others. Indeed, not all of God's intended guests are yet present....

We note that it had not even occurred to the disciples that the solution might come from the people themselves and their spirit - not from the patented leaders or some individual benefactor.

Unexpected solution: the question of food is solved not from above, but from within the people and with the few loaves they brought with them.

There is no solution with the verb 'to multiply' - i.e. 'to increase' ... what? relationships that count, increase property, pile up wiles.

The only therapy is the coexistence of 'breaking', 'giving', 'offering' (v.19). And everyone is involved, no one privileged.

At that time, competitiveness and class mentality characterised the pyramid society of the empire - and began to infiltrate even the small community, just starting out.

As if the Lord and the God of retribution could live side by side, yet.

It is the communion of the needy that conversely rises to the top in the non-artisanal Church.

Real sharing acts as the professor of the ubiquitous veteran, pretentious people, the only ones yet to be converted.The germ of their 'durability' should be not altitude and role, but love.

Such is the only meaning of sacred gestures; not other projects tinged with prevarication, or appearance.

The 'belonging' astound.

For the Lord, the distant (though still poised in their choices) are full participants in the messianic banquet - without preclusions, nor disciplines of the arcane with nerve-racking expectations.

Conversely, that Canteen presses in favour of others who have yet to be called. For a kind of re-establishment of the original Unity.

In short, the Redemption does not belong to elites concerned with the stability of their rule - which it is even the weak who must sustain.

Saved life comes to us by incorporation.

To internalise and live the message:

Have you ever broken your bread, passed on happiness and made recoveries that renew relationships, putting people who do not even have self-esteem back on their feet? Or have you favoured attitudes of the monarchical elite?

Appendix

Jesus wants contributions, resources and skills to work in synergy; to serve and unite for the life of the multitudes (vv.13-15.19).

The Eucharistic gesture - breaking of life - says: new heavens and new earth do not correspond to the world in which each one hurries to reap for himself or his circle, in order to grab the maximum of resources.

Even the Apostles - called by Jesus but still remaining at a safe distance from Him - are not the owners of the Bread, but those who are to give nourishment to all (v.16), to create abundance where there is none.

They are to share, not to rule - least of all over the opinions or situations of others. And, in order to avoid impoverishment and damage to happiness, place themselves in a logic of overcoming.

The Son reflects God's design in compassion for the needy crowd. However, his solution does not gloss over us - simply wiping away tears or erasing humiliation.

It invites us to use what we have, although this may seem ridiculous. But it teaches that shifting energies creates prodigious results.

This is how we respond in Christ to the world's great problems: by recovering the condition of the man viator - a being of passage, his essential mark - and by sharing goods.

Our real nakedness, the vicissitudes and experiences of our many brothers and sisters, who are different, are resources not to be evaluated with distrust, "as dangerous competitors or enemies" of our fulfilment (FT no.151).

The Lord does not agree with the idea of everyone making do (v.15); neither does he like alms, or the old idol of "buying" (v.15).

He imposes on his own that "the crowds" (plural) lie down in abundance (v.19 Greek text) as the lords and free people did at solemn banquets.

He wants and insists that it is primarily the disciples who serve (v.19), not other slaves.

And perhaps the most astounding thing is that he does not impose prior gestures of purification on any of those present, as was the custom in traditional, hypocritically sterilised and selective religiosity.

Before the meal, it required ablution: a ceremony that emphasised a sacred detachment between the pure and the impure.

The disciples' only task is to distribute the Food - then to be chopped up, sifted and assimilated personally, to build a new world - not to X-ray it beforehand; much less to be interested in it.

In religion we have a long rigmarole of fulfilments to observe in order to present ourselves before God, which unfortunately normalise us.

In the path of Faith, it is the free encounter with the Lord that makes us grow and complete, making us perfect and uncontaminated, unconditionally... extracting authentic Pearls, precisely from our character eccentricities (those that depart from millimetric agreements).

His Kingdom? All invited and brothers (even not in agreement), no one master or ruler - destined to lead the humble by his own hand, always standing in front or above - because he is quicker and more able to manage himself.

The Eucharist remains a Call to Real Conviviality (of differences as they are) and an evergreen Reminder not to settle for individual devotions or a twinnable but empty spirituality.

The working Faith thus has the Eucharist as its emblem, a revolution of sacredness. It seems strange, for us who have grown accustomed to it.

The aim of evangelisation is to emancipate from everything that threatens life, not only in its extreme limitation, but also in its everyday action - to the point of seeking the communion of goods.

In Matthew 14 the prodigy is placed after Jesus was rejected from Nazareth, Herod's concern, the murder of the Baptist.

The Source and Summit Sign of the community of sons is a creative gesture that imposes a shift of vision, an absolutely new eye.In the face of the destitution of the many - caused by the greed of the few - the attitude of the authentic Church does not take pleasure in emblems and fervour, nor in partial calls to distinguish itself in almsgiving.

The breaking of the Bread takes the place of the Manna dropped from above in the desert and involves its distribution - not only in special situations (v.15).

We must not limit ourselves in multiplying Life.

There must be no limits when spreading the nourishment of wisdom: 

the five «loaves», that is, the Pentateuch as ‘staple food’, 

and two «fishes», that is, the Historical Books and the Prophets, 

foods that accompany the Torah.

All to be «broken» for everyone 

and shared, for the benefit of each person.

This is the attitude of the living Body of the thaumaturgic Christ [not the miracle-worker] who feels called to be active in every circumstance.

Eucharistic participation must lead us to the gift and sharing of bread.

The result: women and men will eat, remain full, and there will be food left over for others [not all of God's intended guests are still present...].

We note that it had not even occurred to the disciples that the solution might come from the people themselves and their spirit - not just the paternalism of the leaders or some individual benefactor.

Unexpected solution: the question of food is solved not from above, but only from within the people and with the few loaves they brought with them (vv.15-17).

There is no solution with the verb 'multiply' - i.e. 'increase' ... relationships that count, increase property, pile up wiles.

The only therapy is 'to break', 'to give', 'to distribute' (vv.16-19 Greek text).

And everyone is involved, no one privileged.

At that time, competitiveness and class mentality characterised the society of the empire - and began to infiltrate even the small community, just starting out.

As if the Lord and the God of retribution could live side by side, yet.

It is the communion of the needy that conversely takes centre stage in the authentic Church.

Real sharing acts as the professor of the ubiquitous veteran, pretentious and pretentious, the only ones who have yet to be converted.

The germ of their 'longevity' should be not altitude and role, but love.

Such is the only meaning of sacred gestures, not other projects tinged with bullying, or appearance.

The 'belonging' and veterans astound.

For the Lord, the distant (though still poised in their choices) are full sharers in the messianic banquet - without preclusions, nor disciplines of the arcane or nerve-wracking expectations.

Conversely, that Canteen cries out in favour of others who have yet to be called, for a kind of re-establishment of the original Unity.

In short, the Redemption does not belong to the (pyramidal monarchical) elites who are concerned about the stability of their dominance - which it is even the weak who must sustain.

[As St. Augustine said: "The Word of God that is daily explained to you and in a certain sense 'broken' is also daily Bread" (Sermo 58, IV: PL 38,395). Complete food: basic food and "companion" - historical and ideal, in code and in deed].

To internalise and live the message:

How does the Eucharistic gesture speak to you of the Revolution of Tenderness, and of your Calling by Name through the Church?

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

This Sunday’s Gospel describes the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves that Jesus worked for a great throng of people who had followed him to listen to him and to be healed of various illnesses (cf. Mt 14:14).

As evening fell the disciples suggested to Jesus that he send the crowds away so that they might take some refreshment. But the Lord had something else in mind: “You give them something to eat” (Mt 14:16). However they had “only five loaves... and two fish”. Jesus’ subsequent action evokes the sacrament of the Eucharist: “He looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds” (Mt 14:19).

The miracle consists in the brotherly sharing of a few loaves which, entrusted to the power of God, not only sufficed for everyone but enough was left over to fill 12 baskets. The Lord asked this of the disciples so that it would be they who distributed the bread to the multitude; in this way he taught and prepared them for their future apostolic mission: in fact, they were to bring to all the nourishment of the Word of life and of the sacraments.

In this miraculous sign the incarnation of God and the work of redemption are interwoven. Jesus, in fact, “went ashore” from the boat to meet the men and women (cf. Mt 14:14). St Maximus the Confessor said that the Word of God made himself present for our sake, by taking flesh, derived from us and conformed to us in all things save sin, in order to expose us to his teaching with words and examples suitable for us” (Ambigua 33: PG 91, 1285 C).

Here the Lord offers us an eloquent example of his compassion for people. We are reminded of all our brothers and sisters in the Horn of Africa who in these days are suffering the dramatic consequences of famine, exacerbated by war and by the lack of solid institutions. Christ is attentive to material needs but he wished to give more, because man always “hungers for more, he needs more” (Jesus of Nazareth, Doubleday, New York 2007, p. 267 (English translation). God’s love is present in the bread of Christ; in the encounter with him “we feed on the living God himself, so to speak, we truly eat the ‘bread from Heaven’” (ibid. p. 268).

Dear friends. “in the Eucharist Jesus also makes us witnesses of God’s compassion towards all our brothers and sisters. The Eucharistic mystery thus gives rise to a service of charity towards neighbour” (Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis, n. 88).

[Pope Benedict, Angelus 31 July 2011]

“How are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?"

Before the multitude which has followed him from the shores of the Sea of Galilee to the mountains in order to listen to his word, Jesus begins, with this question, the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves. This is the significant prelude to the long speech in which he reveals himself to the world as the real Bread of life which came down from heaven (cf. Jn 6:41).

1. We have listened to the evangelical narration: with five barley loaves and two fish, offered by a boy, Jesus feeds about five thousand people. But the latter, not understanding the depth of the "sign" in which they have been involved, are convinced that they have at last found the King-Messiah, who will solve the political and economic problems of their nation. Before this obtuse misunderstanding of his mission, Jesus withdraws, all alone, to the mountains.

We, too, beloved Brothers and Sisters, have followed Jesus and continue to follow him. But we can and must ask ourselves "With what interior attitude?" With the true one of faith, which Jesus expected of the Apostles and of the multitude that he had fed, or with an attitude of incomprehension? Jesus presented himself on that occasion like, in fact more than, Moses who had fed the people of Israel in the desert during the Exodus. He presented himself like, in fact more than, Elisha, who had fed a hundred persons with twenty loaves of barley and grain. Jesus manifested himself, and manifests himself to us today, as the One who is capable of satisfying for ever the hunger of our hearts: "I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst." (Jn 6:33)

And man, especially modern man, is so hungry: hungry for truth, justice, love, peace, beauty; but, above all, hungry for God. "We must hunger for God!", St Augustine exclaims ("famelici Dei esse debemus": Enarrat. in psal. 146, n. 17,: PL 37, 1895 f.). It is he, the heavenly Father, who gives us the true bread!

2. This bread, which we need, is first and foremost Christ, who gives himself to us in the sacramental signs of the Eucharist, and makes us hear, at every Mass, the words of the last Supper: "Take and eat, all of you: this is my body offered in sacrifice for you." In the sacrament of the eucharistic bread—the Second Vatican Council affirms —"the unity of all believers who form one body in Christ (cf. I Cor 10:17) is both expressed and brought about. All men are called to this union with Christ, who is the light of the world, from whom we go forth, through whom we live, and toward whom our journey leads us." (Lumen Gentium, 3.)

The bread that we need is, moreover, the Word of God, because "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Mt 4:4; cf. Dt 8:3). Certainly, men, too, can express and utter words of high value. But history shows us how the words of men are sometimes insufficient, ambiguous, disappointing, biased; while the Word of God is full of truth (cf. 2 Sam 7:28; 1 Cor 17:26); it is upright (Psalms 33:4); it is stable and remains for ever (cf. Psalms 119:89; 1 Pet 1:25).

We must listen religiously to this Word continually; assume it as the criterion of our way of thinking and acting; get to know it, by means of assiduous reading and personal meditation; but especially, we must day after day, in all our behaviour, make it ours, put it into practice,

The bread we need, finally, is grace; and we must invoke it, ask for it with sincere humility and tireless constancy, well aware that it is the most precious thing we can possess.

3. The path of our life, laid out for us by God's providential love, is a mysterious one, sometimes incomprehensible on the human plane, and nearly always hard and difficult. But the Father gives us the bread from heaven" (cf. In 6:32), to encourage us in our pilgrimage on earth.

I am happy to conclude with a passage from St Augustine, which sums up admirably that upon which we have meditated: "We can understand very well... how your Eucharist is daily food. The faithful know, in fact, what they receive and it is good that they should receive the daily bread necessary for this time. They pray for themselves, to become good, to be persevering in goodness, faith, and a good life... the Word of God, which is explained to us and, in a certain sense, broken, every day, is also daily bread" (Sermo 58, IV: PL 38, 395).

May Christ Jesus always multiply his bread, also for us!

Amen!

[Pope John Paul II, homily 29 July 1979]

This Sunday’s Gospel presents to us the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves (see Mt 14,13-21). The scene takes place in a deserted place, where Jesus had retired with His disciples. But the people found Him so as to listen to Him and to be healed: indeed, His words and His gestures restore and bring hope. At sundown, the crowd was still present and the disciples, practical men, invited Jesus to send them away so that they could go and find something to eat. But He answered: “You give them something to eat” (v. 16). We can imagine the disciples’ faces! Jesus was well aware of what He was about to do, but He wanted to change their attitude: not to say, “send them away,” “let them fend for themselves”, “let them find something to eat”, but rather, “what does Providence offer us to share?” These are two opposite ways of behaving. And Jesus wants to bring them to the second way of behaving because the first proposal is that of the practical person, but is not generous: “send them away so they can go and find, let them fend for themselves.” Jesus thinks another way. Jesus wants to use this situation to educate His friends, both then and now, about God’s logic. And what is God’s logic that we see here? The logic of taking responsibility for others. The logic of not washing one’s hands, the logic of not looking the other way. No. The logic of taking responsibility for others. That “let them fend for themselves” should not enter into the Christian vocabulary.

As soon as one of the Twelve says, realistically, “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish”, Jesus answers, “Bring them here to me” (vv. 17-18). He takes the food in His hands, raises His eyes heavenward, recites the blessing and begins to break it and  give the pieces to the disciples to hand out. And those loaves and fish did not run out; there was enough, and plenty left over for thousands of people.

With this gesture, Jesus demonstrates His power; not in a spectacular way but as a sign of charity, of God the Father’s generosity toward His weary and needy children. He is immersed in the life of His people, He understands their fatigue and their limitations, but He does not allow anyone to be lost, or to lose out: He nourishes them with His word and provides food in plenty for sustenance.

In this Gospel passage we can perceive a reference to the Eucharist, especially in the description of the blessing, the breaking of the bread, delivery to the disciples, and distribution to the people (v. 19). It is noteworthy how close the link is between the Eucharistic bread, nourishment for eternal life, and daily bread, necessary for earthly life. Before offering Himself to the Father as the Bread of salvation, Jesus ensures there is food for those who follow Him and who, in order to be with Him, forgot to make provisions. At times the spiritual and the material are in opposition, but in reality spiritualism, like materialism, is alien to the Bible. It is not biblical language.

The compassion and tenderness that Jesus showed towards the crowds is not sentimentality, but rather the concrete manifestation of the love that cares for the people’s needs. And we are called to approach the Eucharistic table with these same attitudes of Jesus: compassion for the needs of others, this word that is repeated in the Gospel when Jesus sees a problem, an illness or these people without food… “He had compassion.” “He had compassion”. Compassion is not a purely material feeling; true compassion is patire con [to suffer with], to take others’ sorrows on ourselves. Perhaps it would do us good today to ask ourselves: Do I feel compassion when I read news about war, about hunger, about the pandemic? So many things… Do I feel compassion toward those people? Do I feel compassion toward the people who are near to me? Am I capable of suffering with them, or do I look the other way, or “they can fend for themselves”? Let us not forget this word “compassion,” which is trust in the provident love of the Father, and means courageous sharing.

May Mary Most Holy help us to walk the path that the Lord shows us in today's Gospel. It is the journey of fraternity, which is essential in order to face the poverty and suffering of this world, especially in this tragic moment, and which projects us beyond the world itself, because it is a journey that begins with God and returns to God.

[Pope Francis, Angelus, 2 August 2020]

Prophecy, Revelation

(Mt 14:1-12)

Those who are cloaked in luster and power become ambitious, bold and willing to any violence for a false point of honor.

The courageous who denounces abuse is cut off, but the voice of his martyrdom will no longer be silent. That is why the episode does not induce Jesus to greater prudence.

Tyrants mock the isolated, uncomfortable and defenceless, but leaders and powerful are also cowards: they do not intend to alienate popular fame from themselves.

Besides being spineless, here Herod Antipas appears superstitious, even influenced by Hellenistic beliefs about the reappearance of the dead.

In addition, he thought of the men of God as doers of “miracles” - an ambiguous term, which some new translations avoid (cf. v.2).

Jesus never attended the new Herodian capital, Tiberias, the city of court palaces, built in diplomatic homage to the Roman emperor - after Sepphoris, where Jesus also worked.

Generic and confusing religiosity can adapt to every season and be made their own even by those who think that the others’ lives are worth nothing, but a Prophet does not settle on the whim of corrupt systems.

In the Palestinian villages the life of the people was harassed by taxes and abuses of landowners [who did not even reside on the spot] and controlled by the perfect combination of interests between civil and religious power.

The leaders of the popular faith, orthodox, subordinate and “befitting”, were at leash of the authorities on the territory. They considered themselves definitive, and found strength in the coalition.

It seemed absurd that in that society someone dared to break through the omertous wall that guaranteed the troublemakers - the guides, the bullies even of the lowest level - to consider themselves untouchable.

Faced with the blackmail (without too many compliments) of the privileged who had control of every social and cultural class, it seemed impossible to start a new path, or say and do anything not aligned.

The question of "Jesus, Who is he?» grows throughout the Gospels.

The statement of people's opinions (e.g. Mt 14:1-2; Mk 6:14-16; Lk 9:7-9) suggests that even around the first assemblies of believers there was an attempt to understand Christ from what was already known [from the criteria of Scripture and tradition, from ancient - even superstitious - beliefs and suggestions].

But the man of God is not simply a purifier of the Temple, nor a patchworker of conformist religiosity. He overturns popular, emotional or standard hopes.

In this way, each Prophet troubles all the “rank and file” characters, who hold the exclusiveness.

John and Jesus challenge and attract upon themselves the revenge of those who try to perpetuate the prerogatives of the old cosmos, and the wrath of those who are exposed in their hypocrisies.

It is the real difficulty that the Proclamation of the New Kingdom in the world encounters. 

His contemptuous refusal and each assassination attempt will be a litmus test of our singular and renewed testimony, the revelation of which will run parallel to the Two.

[Saturday 17th wk. in O.T.  August 1st, 2026]

We see this great figure, this force in the Passion, in resistance to the powerful. We wonder: what gave birth to this life, to this interiority so strong, so upright, so consistent, spent so totally for God in preparing the way for Jesus? The answer is simple: it was born from the relationship with God, from prayer, which was the thread that guided him throughout his existence. John was the divine gift for which his parents Zechariah and Elizabeth had been praying for so many years (cf. Lk 1:13); a great gift, humanly impossible to hope for, because they were both advanced in years and Elizabeth was barren (cf. Lk 1:7); yet nothing is impossible to God (cf. Lk 1:36). The announcement of this birth happened precisely in the place of prayer, in the temple of Jerusalem, indeed it happened when Zechariah had the great privilege of entering the holiest place in the temple to offer incense to the Lord (cf. Lk 1:8-20). John the Baptist’s birth was also marked by prayer: the Benedictus, the hymn of joy, praise and thanksgiving which Zechariah raises to the Lord and which we recite every morning in Lauds, exalts God’s action in history and prophetically indicates the mission of their son John: to go before the Son of God made flesh to prepare his ways (cf. Lk 1:67-79).

The entire existence of the Forerunner of Jesus was nourished by his relationship with God, particularly the period he spent in desert regions (cf. Lk 1:80). The desert regions are places of temptation but also where man acquires a sense of his own poverty because once deprived of material support and security, he understands that the only steadfast reference point is God himself. John the Baptist, however, is not only a man of prayer, in permanent contact with God, but also a guide in this relationship. The Evangelist Luke, recalling the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples, the Our Father, notes that the request was formulated by the disciples in these words: “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his own disciples” (cf. Lk 11:1).

Dear brothers and sisters, celebrating the martyrdom of St John the Baptist reminds us too, Christians of this time, that with love for Christ, for his words and for the Truth, we cannot stoop to compromises. The Truth is Truth; there are no compromises. Christian life demands, so to speak, the “martyrdom” of daily fidelity to the Gospel, the courage, that is, to let Christ grow within us and let him be the One who guides our thought and our actions. However, this can happen in our life only if we have a solid relationship with God. Prayer is not time wasted, it does not take away time from our activities, even apostolic activities, but exactly the opposite is true: only if we are able to have a faithful, constant and trusting life of prayer will God himself give us the ability and strength to live happily and serenely, to surmount difficulties and to witness courageously to him. St John the Baptist, intercede for us, that we may be ever able to preserve the primacy of God in our life. Thank you.

[Pope Benedict, General Audience 29 August 2012]

1. [...] Christian tradition commemorates the martyrdom of St John the Baptist; the Messiah himself says in praise of him: "none born of woman is greater" (cf. Lk 7: 28). He gave to God the supreme witness of his blood, sacrificing his life for truth and justice; indeed, his head was cut off at the orders of Herod, whom he had dared to tell that it was not lawful to take his brother's wife (cf. Mc 6: 17-29).

2. In the Encyclical Veritatis Splendor, recalling the sacrifice of John the Baptist (cf. n. 91), I observed that martyrdom is "an outstanding sign of the holiness of the Church" (n. 93). Indeed, it "represents the high point of the witness to moral truth" (ibid.).

Although relatively few are called to make this supreme sacrifice, it is nonetheless "a consistent witness which all Christians must daily be ready to make, even at the cost of suffering and grave sacrifice" (ibid.). At times, a truly heroic effort is also needed in daily life, in order not to give in to the difficulties that are an incentive to compromise and to live the Gospel "sine glossa".

3. The heroic example of John the Baptist reminds us of the martyrs for the faith who down the centuries followed courageously in his footsteps. I recall in particular the multitude of Christians in the last century who were also victims of religious hatred in various European nations. Today too, in some parts of the world, believers are still subjected to harsh trials for adhering to Christ and his Church.

May these brothers and sisters of ours feel the full solidarity of the entire Ecclesial Community! Let us entrust them to the Blessed Virgin, Queen of Martyrs, whom we call on together.

[Pope John Paul II, Angelus 29 August 2004]