Fr. Roger J. Landry

Conversations with Consequences Podcast

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A) (Vigil)

August 1, 2020

 

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/8.1.20_Landry_ConCon.mp3

 

The text that guided the homily was: 

* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday, in which we enter into the scene of Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves and fish to feed the crowd of five thousand men, likely five thousand women, and probably 15,000 kids. It allows us to ponder three important aspects of our Christian life.

* The first is the importance of prayer. The scene begins with St. Matthew’s telling us, Jesus “withdrew … to a deserted place by himself.” Jesus wanted to pray and he knew he needed to get away from the hustle, bustle, push and muscle of the multitudes. This type of prayerful withdrawal was very common for Jesus. The evangelists tell us that he would regularly rise early before dawn to go off to a deserted place to pray (see Mk 1:35 and Lk 4:42). Before he commenced his public ministry, he went out into the desert for a month and a half to pray and fast. At the Transfiguration, he took Peter, James and John up an exceedingly high mountain in order to pray. Jesus was, in short, constantly withdrawing from the crowds in order to do what was most important, which was to enter into undistracted communion with his Father in prayer. He did this not merely out of desire and need, but also as an example, to form in us a similar need and desire. Jesus is constantly saying to us, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest for a while” (Mk 6:31). These words refer, of course, to our daily prayer, but also to more extended periods of prayer like retreats. The summer is a time in which we should try to make such time for prayer. I will be beginning my annual retreat on Wednesday. Please keep me in your prayers.

* The second thing we encounter in this Gospel is Jesus’ compassion for the multitudes. When Jesus saw the throng awaiting him when he was trying to pray, it would have been easy for him to have gotten a little frustrated or irritated, but he, rather, was filled with mercy. St. Matthew tells us, “His heart was moved with pity for them.” That expression is a softening of the original Greek verb “esplangchnisthe,” a more literal translation of which would be he was “sick to his stomach” with compassion as he saw the crowds. And we see what he did: He cured their sick. Then he fed them. That verb esplangchnisthe is used by the Gospel writers to introduce, likewise, how Jesus out of gut-bursting mercy taught the crowds, forgave sins, and had us pray to the harvest master for laborers and then called those praying to be laborers. Jesus is always looking at you and at me with mercy, and he’s healing, feeding, teaching, forgiving, and summoning us to join him in his mission of mercy. That brings us to the third point, which concerns how Jesus wants to incorporate us into his ordinary and miraculous exercise of compassion for the crowds.

* In the Gospel, out of concern for the crowd, tried to get Jesus to dismiss the crowd “so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.” Jesus says, “There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves.” Very often, we try to pass the buck on others’ difficulties, saying, “that’s their problem,” not mine. Jesus wanted them, he wants us, to feel responsible. We should also note that when Jesus saw the infamished crowds, he could have easily worked a miracle from scatch. He who created the heavens and the earth from nothing,