A Short Sunday Sermon

 

Do you like sermons which go on for 30 or 40 minutes? I don't, and typically run outside for a cigarette and a cup of coffee, if available, while the preacher's banging on interminably. That in mind, I'll try to keep it short lest you lose interest and dive into the nearest gun shop.

The miraculous feeding of the 5000. Positive divine power proof that Jesus was God; mortals can't do such things. Our first lesson, the divinity of Christ, but what else? Start at the beginning of the passage and what do we find? Jesus stepping ashore from his boat, God made Man stepping onto the shore of the world, the Incarnation. Once there he beholds the crowd and moved with compassion, cures the sick.

Behold the character of the Incarnate Word; full of compassion, with mercy, pity and love, he heals the sick. There on that shore it was physical disease, which points to a greater cure, our deliverance from sin and death, of being made whole again by the great physician of our souls. Where is this achieved?

On the Cross, and again the miraculous narrative points us to this, to the "lonely place apart" where the day is well-spent, to Gethsemane, the Praetorium, to Golgotha itself and the Cross, where our Lord cries out, "It is finished," and darkness covers the land even as he feeds us with the miraculous food of his body and blood.

Look what we have in just the first half of the Gospel passage, an outline of Christ's redemptive work, but we have to ask, where do we get this supernatural food? In the Eucharist, which is emphatically prefigured in the miracle. What happens?

There in the dark, recall his Passion, he takes the small offering of  5 loaves and two fish, signifying what? The Law and the Prophets, the 5 senses of Man sanctified, the sevenfold order of creation, Jesus himself who is the bread of life? All this perhaps and more and, having taken this up he blesses it, breaks it and gives it to the disciples to distribute.

He does the very same thing at the Last Supper, the first Eucharist, where from his compassion he feeds his disciples with the miraculous food of his body and blood shed for them on the Cross for the remission of their sins, for their healing and life. He does the same for us today in the Mass, where our Lord steps ashore to heal us, make us whole again with God, nourishing us with the supernatural food of his body and blood.

What can we do in the face of such mystery? Draw near with faith to the sacrament of our Lord's Body and Blood, wherein the great Physician heals us, forgiving our sins and raises us to eternal life.

God Bless,

LSP