18th Sunday in OT 2020 - "Give them some food yourselves"

Each of the four Gospels contain different stories of Jesus eating with people: he attends the wedding feast at Cana. He took meals with tax collectors, prostitutes and public sinners—inviting the most excluded into the company of believers. He ate with Pharisees and Scribes challenging their preconceptions, urging them to acknowledge and repent of their hypocrisy. And of course he ate with his disciples—taking the Passover meal with them—changing bread and wine into his Body and Blood the night before he died. After his resurrection he eats fish with the apostles on the seashore.

Today’s Gospel passage about the feeding of the large crowd is found in all four Gospel. The Lord had been teaching and healing thousands of people out in the desert, and when evening came, as we heard, the disciples wished to dismiss the crowd so they could buy food for themselves. The Lord however, does not like to send people away hungry, not if he can help it. 

So, instead of dispersing this crowd, the Lord draws them together, intending to feed this vast crowd through a miracle. But notice, he involves his disciples in this miracle:  “you give them some food yourselves.”  The disciples solution was to send the crowd away to fend for themselves, but the Lord says, no, in the communion of the kingdom of God we bear each other’s burdens.  We don’t say “it’s your problem” and your problem alone.  We are in this together.  World hunger, it’s not someone else’s problem; poor understanding of the faith, it’s not someone else’s problem.  Laws being passed which are repugnant to the dignity of human life, or which erode religious freedom. it’s not someone else’s problem.

We have a tendency to want to pass the buck on to someone else.  We see a problem and say “someone ought to do something, someone ought to take care of this.”  Standing up for life, standing up for religious freedom or the rights of the oppressed, protecting our religious statues from an angry mob, feeding the poor, spreading the Gospel, it’s not merely the pope’s job, or the bishop’s job, or the pastor’s job; every Catholic bears the responsibility for the work of the Church and spreading the Gospel.

“You give them something to eat, you do something to solve this problem.” He speaks those words to you and me.  As members of the Church, God gives us the tremendous responsibility of being his hands and his feet out in the world, feeding the large crowd of the world with physical bread and also spiritual bread—the truth of the Gospel and relief for the suffering. 

Some of you might remember, that In the 1950s and 60s, a movement called Catholic Action which aimed at rallying the Catholic layfaithful for the work of the Gospel out in the world. And Catholic Action had a motto, very simple, three words. “see, judge, act.”  See, judge, act.  First see, open your eyes, what is going on in the Church and in society.  Second, judge: make a determination of what can I do, how can I help, how can I serve.  And thirdly, act—if you can do it, do it. “You give them something to eat.”

After issuing this command the disciples respond, “all we have are these five loaves, a couple fish, and there are five thousand people here, not counting the women and children.  So we are supposed to do something?”  True, sometimes all we can do is identify, that personally, I don’t have enough to do all this work myself. We need each other and we need God.

So the Lord responds,  “Give them to me!”  And he multiplies them in such a way that every person is fed and filled, and in fact, there are twelve baskets left over.

The spiritual lesson?  You give what you have, even if it is very little, to Christ and it will be multiplied.  Give Christ your mind, your will, your energy, your compassion, your earthly treasures.  See, judge act. Give it to Christ, and you will find that it becomes multiplied for his purposes.  

Catholic parishes, like ours, are just like that small group of disciples, looking at its meager possessions, saying, what can we do with these fives loaves and two fish. But coming together, despite our differences, we offer what we have to the Lord, and the Lord multiplies.

I’ve been so impressed over the last few months during COVID of the great generosity of our parishioners and friends. Parishes, larger than ours are having greater difficulty paying the bills, many have even had to cut back on some of their charitable outreach. But not St. Ignatius. We’ve seen our SVDP flourish and working very hard to meet the needs of the hungry and those who may have lost their jobs or having difficulty paying the rent. Our Legion of Mary has needed to set up extra chairs at our weekly meetings. Daily mass and first Friday holy hour have been very well attended. And of course our Garden Club, making our grounds look so splendid and beautiful. I’m also very happy to hear that a small group of parishioners have formed a new prayer group, the Seven Sister’s Apostolate, to pray for priests. 

We’ve had some challenges though. We are certainly in need of parishioners to step-up to take leadership on some of our fundraising efforts. Our golf outing, our gala committee, the clambash, we need some leaders to step-up. And of course, inviting some of those parishioners who have sort of fallen by the wayside over the last decade, back to Church. And of course, evangelizing, inviting non-Catholics, searchers and seekers, to come and see what we are doing in here.

So, I repeat the invitation I made a month ago when we announced Sister Dianne’s resignation, if there’s any ministry that you’d like to get involved in, please let me know. I invite you again, to see, judge act. To ask yourself and ask the Lord, what can I do to help, what can I do to serve, what do I need to entrust to God, that he may multiply it for his purposes.

But what is not given cannot be multiplied, what is not offered-up will not be transformed. So let us be generous with the Lord, with offering our time, talent, and treasure, our creativity, our passions, and our sufferings for the glory of God and salvation of souls.