Is 55:1-3
Ps 145
Rom 8:35, 37-39
Mt 14:13-21
The past months have forced us to consider Paul's question in the Letter to the Romans: Will anguish, or distress or peril separate us from the love of Christ? Today he could ask, will covid destroy our faith? Will restrictions, economic fallout, illness, death, or the general stress with which we have been living separate us from Christ?
We are dealing with an unknown peril. The greatest stress underlying our common experience is uncertainty, much of the stress is in not knowing and in perceiving--correctly--that medical experts are leading blindly much of the time. Even worse can be said of politicians and wannabe politicians--both parties--who have been amoral in their politicization of the various crises wracking the country.
We heard in Psalm 145, the responsorial psalms:
"The Lord is just in all his ways
and holy in all his works."
and holy in all his works."
And yet we find ourselves looking toward the heavens and crying out with Habakkuk:
"How long O Lord must I cry for help,
and you do not listen?
Or cry out to you--violence,
and you do not intervene?"
The writer of the responsorial psalm assures us:
"The LORD is near to all who call upon him,
to all who call upon him in truth."
to all who call upon him in truth."
And yet we find ourselves pleading in the words of Psalm 13:
"How long O Lord will you utterly forget me?
How long will you hide your face from me?"
We cry out for consolation but it doesn't come. We scream WHY . . . . and hear silence. But only then, when we are alone in that startling silence, can we truly know that the Lord is with us, in the everlasting covenant and the promises He made to David
Just as Paul asks a rhetorical question in the second reading, Isaiah asks one halfway through the first reading: "Why spend your money for what is not bread; your wages for what fails to satisfy?"
Questions that begin with why are never easy to answer because they demand that we look deep into ourselves to explain our motives and desires. In doing so we confront our sinful selves.
Some time during the first month of psychiatric residency psychoanalyst Carol Tosone suggested that we avoid beginning a question with "why?" when with patients because why implies the possibility of punishment. It was an eye-opening moment. She went on to illustrate saying that it was like being in grade school when the teacher stood over you and asked, "And why did you do that young man?" and the unsaid "Uh oh" that followed.
'What' questions, 'who' questions, and 'when' questions, are easier to answer, because they are requests for facts. 'Why' questions ask about feeling, desire, and motivation. Thus, Isaiah's question forces the listener or the reader to go inside him or herself to seek the answer. That internal journey can be frightening.
What of bread?
One need not be a biblical scholar or a theologian of any stripe, to realize that the narratives of the feeding of the multitude prefigures the Eucharistic Banquet in which we are privileged to participate. The feeding of the multitude from a few small loaves and some fish foretold and continues to remind us that from those few loaves broken and blessed, consecrated in the hands of our Lord, Jesus has nourished uncounted billions of people with the only necessary thing: the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation, poured out for us that we might live despite the crises we are facing today and those we will face in the time to come.
The patina and texture of these doors scream: Photograph me.
This was a courtyard in front of the entrance to the Franciscan Monastery in which we stayed during the quick overnight. The following morning the weather became gorgeous. Alas, I had the 11 AM Mass in LJ. Interesting ride back to the city.
+Fr. Jack, SJ, MD
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