18th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year A

Isaiah 55:1-3; Romans 8:35.37-39; Matthew 14:13-21

In our gospel today we meditate on the awe-inspiring power of God to use littleness to achieve greatness.

So as he stepped ashore he saw a large crowd; and he took pity on them and healed their sick - When evening came, the disciples went to him.

There is a startling contrast here between the great size of the crowd and the small number of the Apostles, twelve men, and very ordinary men they were too by the world's standards – fishermen, tax-collectors - nothing much to work on there.

• The weak, impulsive, unfaithful Peter to make into ‘the Rock of the Church’.
• The sinful taxman Matthew to make into a model of honesty and reliability.
• The 'sons of thunder' James and John to make into meek and gentle martyrs.
• The doubting Thomas to make into a pillar of faith.

Five loaves and two fish really. How did he do it?

It makes me think of the situation here in this parish, in most parishes really. Many thousands of people living in the district and here we are, a small handful of Catholics called to be the salt of the earth, the light of the world - five loaves and two fish.

And what about at home, in so many families, where everyone seems to have given up listening to God, given up coming to Mass on Sundays or going to meet him in Reconciliation, or receiving Holy Communion worthily or having any kind of prayer life at all? They don't care and they are constantly inviting the rest of the family not to care either.

What am I among so many? Just five loaves and two fish!

When evening came, the disciples went to him and said, "This a lonely place, and the time has slipped by; so send the people away, and they can go to the villages to buy themselves some food."

Five thousand people and Twelve Apostles - five thousand hungry stomachs and five loaves and two fish. The Apostles were not stupid. They knew how to divide, add and subtract - only Jesus knew how to multiply - and the figures were not promising. No wonder they told the Lord to send the crowd away. What could they do for them?

And no wonder, Lord, we Catholics give in so easily when it comes to taking our place in the world. What can we do about abortion, euthanasia, pornography, materialism, secularism, relativism, individualism? What can we do when there are so many today who have given up that they even make us wonder whether we are not simply being scrupulous, fanatical or worst of all, pre-Vatican II!

And no wonder so many catholic partners in a marriage give up trying to practise their faith or even hold on to it. No wonder so many of our parents give up trying to discipline their children, pray with their children, or even take an interest in their spiritual development, when they feel that the odds are so stacked against them. No wonder so many of our catholic youth give up trying to hang on to their jobs - or their virginity - when they see that just about everyone else seems to be having a 'good time' but them.

The forces of evil seem just too strong and we can easily develop a saviour complex - waiting for a knight in shining armour to come and solve our problems for us. What can we do? We are just five loaves and two fish.

Jesus replied: There is no need for them to go; give them something to eat yourselves.

The Apostles must have been shocked when Jesus said these words. They must have wondered at him and thought, ‘He can't be serious. He knows as well as we do that five loaves and two fish wouldn't even make an entrée. How can he expect US to do something for these people?’

That was the magic word, wasn't it? That's what frightened these followers of Jesus as they stood there before this gigantic problem, that he should dare suggest that they should, that they could, do something themselves.

Twelve men - five little loaves, two little fish.

So now we have been brought to the sharp point of this gospel - to the real point of what it means to be a Christian in today's world – to what it means to be a true follower of Jesus and rely totally on his power. He has brought his Apostles and all of us to the heart of the Christian challenge.

We have done our arithmetic - stated the problem - pointed out the difficulties - and now he raises his arm and points his finger at us and says, ‘Do something about it YOURSELVES.’

What a frightening word that is - that little word - ME!

My Lord, Jesus, how can I do anything about changing things?

• How can I go and see my member of parliament about this euthanasia business?
• How can I write to the principal about what they are teaching my kids at school?
• How can I do something active in the parish?

and lastly, Jesus,

• How can you expect ME to be a saint?

You obviously don't know how busy I am, how untalented I am, how nervous I get in public, how hard I find it to pray and to be good. You obviously don't know me at all. I am just five loaves and two little fish.

'Bring them here to me,' he said ...

Are you listening?

'Bring them here to me," he said - then he took the five loaves and the two fish, raised his eyes to heaven and said the blessing. And breaking the loaves he handed them to his disciples who gave them to the crowds. They all ate as much as they wanted, and they collected the scraps remaining, twelve baskets full.

They all ate as much as they wanted, and they collected the scraps remaining - twelve baskets full.

4th Sunday of Lent - Year A

Samuel 16:1.6-7.10-13; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41

• The Lord said to Samuel …

In its own way this disarmingly simple statement is quite mysterious. Everywhere throughout the Scriptures we find similar phrases in which we are told - the Lord spoke.

The Lord said to Samuel …

I wonder how? How did the Lord speak to Samuel? Was it an inner voice like the one Mother Teresa heard in the train to Darjeeling? Was it a vision like St Faustina had on many occasions? Was the Lord’s message spoken through an angel, as it was to others of the patriarchs and prophets, and to the Blessed Virgin Mary? The only thing we are told here, very simply, is that the Lord spoke. Very mysterious!

At any rate we learn that God does speak to us – he is not a distant God. He communicates himself to individuals and to humanity as a whole in many and varied ways but, of course, especially through Jesus Christ, and today, his Church.

Many people will tell you that God has spoken to them. As a priest I am privileged to hear many of these stories and some are very powerful. Has God spoken to you?

• The Lord said to Samuel, ‘Fill your horn with oil and go. I am sending you to Jesse ..’

God’s call is always one which causes us to move somehow beyond ourselves. It may be moving from point A to point B or it may be a movement within, a decision, like the yes he asked for from Mary. Usually we have to leave something behind, or let go of something, in order to be able to do what God asks of us. A great example of this is when he spoke to Abraham: Leave your country, your family, and your father’s house for the land I will show you.

Every priest or religious or married person has answered a similar call and in order to remain faithful to their calling they have to answer it over and over again, every day. Abraham obeyed and Samuel obeyed. Do we?

• I have chosen myself a king ...

If God speaks to us, and asks something of us, it is because he has a plan. This is apparent from the mission on which he sends Samuel. I have chosen myself a king .. . It is not Samuel’s plan, it is God’s plan.

Samuel is sent to Bethlehem, to Jesse, to chose a king from among his sons. God’s plan is always comprehensive – in this case involving Jesse, David, his brothers, Samuel and, indeed, the town of Bethlehem and all its inhabitants, not to mention the history of the Jewish people and later, with the birth of the Messiah from the shoot of Jesse, the whole human race.

God’s plan for us is always wonderful – far more wonderful than any plan we may have for ourselves. That is why it is always wise to say yes to God’s plan once we learn what it is. If God wants us to be a priest we do well to go to the seminary; if God’s plan is for us to be married or to stay in the single life we do well not to become a priest. If it is God’s plan that we have more than 2.33 children it is always wise to let God’s plan unfold in our lives. Happiness is always to be found in God’s plan. Abraham and Samuel followed God’s plan. Do we?

Samuel goes off to Jesse’s house and sees the eldest boy Eliab and, taking note of his height and appearance, immediately thinks he must be the one the Lord wants to make king.

• ... but the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Take no notice of his appearance or his height …’

Again the Lord speaks to Samuel and this time teaches him and corrects him. For us the message is clear – when we obey the voice of the Lord in our lives we become wise with the wisdom of God and begin to see things as God sees, to think as God thinks, to do as God does.

Pope Benedict says a beautiful thing in his book A New Song For The Lord. He says: Faith is obedience; it means that we relearn the essential form of our being – our nature as creatures – and in this way become authentic.

We have already noted that Abraham’s faith led him to obey and that Samuel did likewise. What we tend to overlook, especially when we see obedience to God as a kind of irritating imposition on our freedom, is that in our obedience we become more and more attuned to the essential form of our being as creatures.

Our obedience makes us authentic because it reconnects us to our Creator in an intimate process of allowing him to reshape us to the extent that we say yes to him. After all, isn’t this is what we were created for – to say yes to God?

Our ways, corrupted by Original Sin and further confused by our own personal sins, are most certainly not the ways of God. Seeing the stature of Eliab Samuel is tempted to think that power resides in strength and imposing looks. God teaches him that power resides in obedience to his word, to his way of seeing. This is the lesson of the Cross on which Jesus emptied himself of all his plans and surrendered in total love to the plans of his Father – and thereby found life for us all – eternal life.

• … Samuel … anointed him … the Lord seized on David and stayed with him from that day on.

Not many of us understand the power of obedience. All too often we have a narrow, partial view. We see the individual opportunities for obedience through eyes searching for the grand, the heroic, the spectacular. Samuel was asked to pour some oil over a young boy’s head. We might say: Big deal! Certainly it was not a very heroic act requiring much effort from the prophet. All it required was obedience. And yet, look at the consequences - a shepherd boy became king of Israel from whose line the Saviour of the world would be born; the Jewish people were to find in David’s son Solomon, the peace for which they yearned; Jesse’s name became a household word for all ages to come; and Samuel himself drew another step closer to his Lord.

We must never underestimate the power of loving obedience, especially in small things. Sometimes these are the most difficult because they seem the least significant. It is through disobedience that we were lost and through obedience that we are found.

It is now the Lenten task of each one of us to question himself or herself on the subject of obedience. Pope Benedict says in his book: …only the obedient person perceives God.