Homily for 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
17th Sunday of Ordinary Time

July 25, 2021
John 6: 1-15
St. Pius X, Scarsdale, N.Y.
St. Theresa, Bronx                                                     

“There’s a boy here who has 5 barley loaves and 2 fish; but what good are these for so many?” (John 6: 9).

(Mosaic from the Church of the Multiplication

at Tabgha, Galilee)

Since November we’ve been reading continuously from St. Mark’s Gospel, Sunday after Sunday.  Now we come to a 5-week interruption in that cycle, partly because Mark’s Gospel is considerably shorter than Matthew’s or Luke’s for filling out our Sunday readings, and partly because the 6th chapter of St. John’s Gospel is so fundamentally important, and these 5 weeks are the only time in our 3-year cycle of readings when we hear that chapter.

The story of how Jesus multiplied a few loaves and fish and fed thousands of people is remarkable in itself.  It’s also so important to the Christian Gospel that it’s one of the very few stories from Jesus’ public life reported in all 4 of the gospels—twice, in fact, by St. Mark and St. Matthew.  What Jesus did is also foreshadowed in the story of the prophet Elisha recounted in our 1st reading (2 Kings 4:42-44).

Jesus’ miracle is thus well attested.  Similar accounts appear in the lives of the saints, also well attested.  It seems that God enjoys such miracles.  E.g., St. John Bosco on one occasion multiplied breakfast rolls for his boys because the baker had cut off the bread supply (as often happened, Don Bosco was seriously in arrears); another time he multiplied chestnuts for the boys as a treat after a pilgrimage; and once he multiplied hosts for Holy Communion because the sacristan had neglected to put out a fresh ciborium.  (I see that we do have a ciborium ready here.)

We may be struck by such stories, 1st, by how the limits of nature are surpassed; by the transformation of the natural order of the world.  How could Jesus turn 5 loaves and 2 fish into a banquet for 5,000 men, plus women and children?  This is an example of what St. John calls the “signs” of Jesus:  “When the people saw the sign he had done…” (9:14).  Other “signs” include his changing water into wine at Cana and raising Lazarus from death.  2d, we’re struck that the signs indicate something much deeper going on, deeper than what our eyes see and our ears hear.

If exceeding the limits of nature to feed more than 5,000 people was a wondrous sign, the Eucharist foreshadowed in this meal offered by Jesus is a far greater surpassing of nature.  That foreshadowing is why the story appears 6 times in the 4 gospels.

The gospels even use language that we recognize as eucharistic:  “Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks (eucharistesas in St. John’s Greek), and distributed them” (6:11).  Matthew, Mark, and Luke also include the verb broke:  Jesus broke the loaves before distributing them.  At Mass the priest pronounces those same 4 verbs in the Last Supper narrative:  “On the night he was betrayed he himself took bread, and, giving you thanks, he said the blessing, broke the bread and gave it to his disciples….”

Back when I was a boy, a long, long time ago (tho not in a galaxy far away), we learned in the Baltimore Catechism that a sacrament is “an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace.”  (I’m sure that sounds familiar to some of you!)  The present Catechism of the Catholic Church says something similar, in fancier language:  “The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us” (#1131).

The bread and fish that Jesus multiplied and used to feed a hungry crowd are signs of a greater feeding that he has provided for his people; signs of a greater miracle of nature than multiplication.  He gives us in the Holy Eucharist a transformation of nature; in a theological term, he gives us a transubstantiation of reality.  He changes the bread that we bring to the altar, and the ordinary wine, into something totally different, substantially altered.  What looks like bread and wine, what tastes like bread and wine, what smells like bread and wine is no longer bread and wine:  “This is my body, which will be given up for you.  This is the chalice of my blood … poured out for you.”  On our altar are no longer bread and wine but the body and blood of Jesus Christ, the same body and blood crucified on Mt. Calvary, the same body and blood that rose from the dead and now lives forever in heaven.  In the coming weeks Jesus will teach us that he is the living bread come down from heaven and giving eternal life to all who come to him and eat his body and drink his blood.

The transformation of ordinary bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ—not symbols but really, truly, and actually his body and blood—is something beyond nature, something supernatural, a miracle of grace.  The Eucharist is one of those 7 outward signs instituted by Christ, dispensed by his Catholic Church, to give us divine grace.

Another miraculous transformation is indicated by this sacrament.  With ordinary food—ordinary bread or our meat and potatoes and veggies—our bodies transform that into all the nutriments we need for life and activity.  The Eucharist, tho, is the true “Wonder bread.”  We don’t transform the Eucharist, but the Eucharist transforms us; we become what we eat and drink; we become the Body of Christ.

Consequently, we must act like what we’ve become.  We must be who we are:  the Body of Christ, people who speak and act like Jesus—not only when we praise God here on Sunday but in our entire lives:  at home, at work, at play or relaxation.  The Eucharist is intended to transform us totally so that one day, when God calls us into eternity, our entire, transformed selves will be recognized as belonging to Jesus Christ, our savior and redeemer, and we shall live alongside him forever.