"My heart is moved with pity for the crowd . . . I do not want to send them away hungry"
Matthew 15: 29-37
Our Gospel for this Wednesday in the first week of our Advent journey reveals the compassion and generosity of God as shown through Jesus. We hear of a gathering of the blind, lame, mute who surround Jesus. Seeing their suffering, he heals them all! I can only imagine what it must have been like to have witnessed these astounding events. The crowds were "amazed" when they saw this happen, to say the least, and they "glorified the God of Israel."
The scene continues to where Jesus then encounters thousands of hungry and tired who have followed him that day. The day is closing, they have no food or drink, Our Lord feels "pity" for them after three amazing days of teachings and miracles. So, he takes what little bread and fish are presented and multiplies it to feed the desperate crowd. This event indelibly marked itself in the memory of the early Christian community. Likely, some of them had been there and witnessed Jesus' display of compassion. But it was more than a show, not at all, rather a foreshadow of the Eucharist, the bread and wine that sustains us.
Jesus' pity is a way of empathy, a way that he identifies with the hunger, thirst, tiredness of the crowd. He does not walk away or avoid them; rather he enters into their experience and reveals to them the merciful mind of God. He heals the sick and feeds the hungry. In our rich Catholic faith we continue this saving grace through the sacraments: Anointing of the Sick and the Eucharist. It is Jesus who anoints, who heals, who sustains us in the Eucharist in our journey through this life towards the next. In the sacraments we encounter the living presence of the savior. They are not just pretty rituals or empty words. They are meant to draw us into the experience of a merciful and compassionate God. In his word we are fed and in his eucharist we are given food for the journey.
This Advent would be a good time to pray for the grace to understand the mysterious depth of the sacraments. For most practicing Catholics the experience of the Mass and the Eucharist is the most familiar sacrament. As we are fed by the Lord with his own life have we become just casual receivers? It is gift offered to us but how grateful are we? Take some time if you can and visit your Church to pray before Christ in the Eucharist. Most parishes have times for Eucharistic Adoration but have you ever gone? Go this week or next if you can and bring the scriptures with you. Read the story of the feeding of the thousands, you'll find it in all four Gospels, and imagine you are in the crowd. What do you see, smell, hear? Bread and fish are placed in your hands from a basket passed around but Jesus is a distance from you. Meanwhile the crowds are eagerly breaking bread and sharing the fish with themselves and you hear what? Where is Jesus in this? Do you know that he is the source of this food?
Peace as we journey . . .
Prepare our hearts, we pray, O Lord our God,
by your divine power,
so that at the coming of Christ your Son
we may be found worthy of the banquet of eternal life
and merit to receive heavenly nourishment
from his hands.
Who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirt,
one God, for ever and ever.
(Collect of Mass)
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