An important theme drawn from the Scripture Readings for the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time on Cycle A (Isaiah 55:1-3; Psalm 145:8-9, 15-16, 17-18; Romans 8:35, 37-39; Matthew 14:13-21) is how God provides us with what we need out of His steadfast love and abounding mercy for our sustenance. More importantly, it is how God can provide when there seems no way to provide. And God provides us with sustenance. The refrain of the Responsorial Psalm, based on Psalm 145:16 is: The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs. And the rest of the Responsorial Psalm reminds us that it is because of His steadfast love and abounding mercy.
During the bitter time of the Babylonian Exile (597
BC-538BC), the Israelites in captivity far from home were downtrodden and
mourning, as reflected in Psalm 137. To this God responded with love and mercy.
So, God inspired Deutero-Isaiah to speak to the Israelites of His providence
and an everlasting covenant promised to David, as reflected in the First
Reading (Isaiah 55:1-3). It provided a beacon of hope for the Israelites in
Exile. But, the spirit of this promise of His providence for sustenance and a
new everlasting covenant was implied to Christ, whom He sent out of love (John
3:16). So, echoing this First Reading, the Gospel Reading (Matthew 14:13-21)
describes how Jesus, who is God in Christ, provided the great multitudes of at least
5,000 with more than enough food out of mere five loaves of bread and two fish.
As a result, nobody was left hungry, since everyone was content.
The crowd can be compared to the Israelites in
Exile. They seemed to have nowhere to go while being hungry. They were
displaced and unsettled and drifting with no certain direction. That is why
Jesus likened them to sheep without shepherd (Mark 6:34). So, they kept chasing
Jesus upon seeing him, seeking sustenance, even though he needed to be alone to
mourn the death of his cousin, John the Baptist, who baptized him to start his
public ministry to bring the Good News in proclaiming the Kingdom of Heaven.
Obviously, Jesus set aside his own needs to grieve when he saw the crowds with
his compassion. In the original Greek text, the word used for Jesus’ response
with compassion is “σπλαγχνίζομαι”(splagchnizomai)
(Matthew 14:14). This is a powerful verb to literally indicate the shared pathos
strong enough to shake internal organs, in defining compassion. Thus,
compassion is a visceral experience.
So, Jesus took care of them, curing the sick. But
when evening time came, the disciples, who just returned from their mission,
wanted the crowd to be sent home. This way, they could be with Jesus, to speak
about their missionary experience. Also, Jesus needed to rest in the evening,
since he was busy curing the sick among the crowd. However, after curing, Jesus
wanted to feed them, even though his disciples only had five loaves of bread
and two fish. To us, just as the
disciples felt, there is no way to feed a crowd as big as 5,000 and more, out
of such a meager amount of food. However, to God, there is nothing impossible,
as He made the virgin pregnant (Luke 1:37). When God wills, it happens
accordingly. Thus, out of deep compassion, Jesus willed to multiply the five
loaves of bread and two fish to satisfy the hungry crowd of great multitudes. And
so it happened, and the disciples served the crowds. In fact, Jesus provided
the crowd more than what they needed to eat. It indicates that God’s love and
mercy are abounding and abundant. Therefore, God’s providence is far greater
than we can think. After all, He is God.
The Second Reading (Romans 8:35, 37-39) reminds that
nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ. It means that God’s
providence is always available to us as it is a manifestation of God’s love. We
are not cut off from God’s love in Christ, and Christ provides with God’s love,
according to the will of the Father.
The feeding of the great multitudes over 5,000,
described in the Gospel Reading, is an example of God’s providence, in which God’s
love and mercy manifested. In fact, this is considered as a prototype of the
Eucharist as the Holy Communion. See how Jesus multiplied the five loaves and
two fish to feed the great crowds and how Jesus instituted the Sacrament of the
Holy Eucharist as the Holy Communion during Last Supper by comparing these
verses:
Taking
the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the
blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave
them to the crowds.
Matthew 14:19
Jesus
took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples said,
“Take and eat; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it
to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the
covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins. Matthew 26:26-28
On both occasions, Jesus took, blessed, broke, and
gave the bread for distribution. And, this is also the pattern how the Body of
Christ in the communion bread is handled during the Eucharistic Prayer by a
presiding priest, who is in persona
Christi.
Also, Jesus’ act of multiplying a scant amount of
loaves and fish to feed the great multitudes in Galilee bears what Elisha with
20 loaves to feed people of unspecified number (2 Kings 4:42-44). In multiplying bread, Elijah reminded: They will eat and have some left over (2
Kings 4:43). And, this was also the case when Jesus multiplied the loaves and
fish to feed the great crowds in Galilee (Matthew 14:20).
God’s providence is greater than what we can take as
there is some leftover, which is carefully collected and not wasted. This
reminds that God’s providence is greater than we can receive at a time, as God’s
love and mercy are greater than we think.
God is not a minimalist when it comes to His providence. And, He does
not charge money and reject anyone who come and seek his providence.
Furthermore, the implication of the multiplication of the loaves and fish to feed the great crowds in Galilee goes beyond the institution of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. In fact, this points to the heavenly wedding banquet, celebrating the matrimonial union of Christ and his bride, the Church, for which those who are blessed to enter into the New Heaven and Earth upon consummation of the Kingdom of Heaven (Revelation 19:6-10), as well as the great feast over the conquered enemies of Christ (Revelation 19:17-18; cf. Psalm 23:5).
Being able to eat what God provides means being in God’s
domain and being attached to God’s love, from which we cannot be separated,
unless we continue to sin and turn into enemies of Christ. Though our
ancestors, Adam and Eve, defied God by falling to the temptation of Satan, since
God is so loving and merciful, we have never been totally separated from His love,
though the eviction from Eden symbolizes a separating distance from God. And,
throughout history, God has been consistent in His efforts to redeem us. When
this redemption completes, the Kingdom is consummated and the New Heaven and
Earth finally become reality through Christ’s matrimonial union with the
Church. Prototyped by Jesus’ multiplication
of the loaves and fish for the great crowds in Galilee, the distribution of the
Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, Corporis
et Sanguinis Christi, leads us to the heavenly wedding banquets: Revelation
19:6-10; 17-18, before entering into the reality of the New Heaven and Earth.
Ever since God created humans and placed Adam and
Eve in Eden, God has been providing us with what we need to sustain our lives
(Genesis 2:9). Being in Eden meant to be in God’s intimate domain and
everything weMat need was provided. Nothing was insufficient in Eden. However,
we have lost this domain of God’s providence when the fall of Adam and Eve resulted
in the eviction from Eden and the loss of the access to the tree of life
(Genesis 3:24). Thereafter, suffering and death entered the humanity (Romans
6:23; cf. Genesis 2:17) as the loss of the tree of life resulted in struggles
to gain food for sustenance.
Though we have to bear this consequence of the loss
of the tree of life due to the fall of Adam and Eve, God has not abandoned us
in starvation, because of his steadfast love and mercy, which is another
running theme for the Scripture Readings for the 18th Sunday and
sung in the Responsorial Psalm.
The
Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness. The Lord is
good to all and compassionate toward all his works. Psalm 145:8-9
So, God provided the family of Jacob during the
famine (Genesis 41:46-44:34) and the Israelites during the Exodus (Exodus
16:1-18), because He is of loving-kindness and mercy. Then, in the fullness of
time, God Godself made His way to us through incarnation of the Logos-Theos in the human flesh of Jesus
to be in the close proximity by dwelling among us (John 1:1, 14), sending His
Son out of love (John 3:16). And, this was not just dwell among us but to offer
Godself in Jesus, the Christ, the Son, in his flesh and blood as the Sacrament
of the Eucharist, Corporis et Sanguinis
Christi (John 6:22-71 cf. Matthew 26:26–28 //Mark 14:22–24// Luke 22:19–20; 1
Corinthians 11:23–25). The fact that baby Jesus was placed in a manger (Luke
2:7) as he was meant to be the food of life for us.
As long as we are in the state of grace, God Godself
in Christ, the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, is available to us as God’s
providence, leading our salvation, redeemed to enter into the New Heaven and
Earth, far greater than the lost Eden. The multiplication of the loaves and
fish for the great crowds is a prototype of the multiplication of God’s very body
in the species of bread, broken to be multiplied, just as a grain of wheat to
die on the ground to bring greater multitudes of harvest (John 12:24). As God’s
love in Christ is inseparably binding to us (Romans 8:39), the Body of Christ
is always available, keeping us in God’s proximity and drawing us to be in him
and him in us (John 14:20) in order for us to be one with each other and one
with Christ, as the Son and the Father are so (John 17:21).
No comments:
Post a Comment