July 31st 2011: Sunday Gospel Reflection

Matthew 14: 13-21

Henri Nouwen reflected that our lives mirror what Jesus did at the Last Supper when he instituted the Eucharist to be with us forever. He took bread, blessed the bread, broke it and gave it to his disciples. We too are called to be bread for the world, Eucharist for others. We too are chosen, blessed, broken, and given.

In the First Reading we hear God calling his chosen ones, each of us, to come to the water to be abundantly nourished. We are chosen.

In our Second Reading we proclaim one of the most inspiring Christian writings of St. Paul, telling the followers of Jesus that we are intimately connected to the Lord and that nothing can separate us from the love of God. Our identity as the blessed ones, the beloved of God, ensures each of us a peace that can only come from a God who is ever-faithful. We are blessed.

In the beginning of the Gospel reading we hear a moment of pain for Jesus. His cousin, John the Baptizer, has died and Jesus withdrew himself in solitude to mourn. Jesus’ sufferings were not exclusive to the cross, though all suffering finds its fulfillment there. Jesus was fully human and suffered from brokenness just as each of us do through fear, loneliness, insecurity, depression, divorce, etc. We are broken.

Finally, as the crowds follow Jesus, He does not turn them away but, allows God’s grace to shine through His brokenness. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples. Chosen and blessed by God Jesus transforms His brokenness (and the brokenness of each of us) by multiplying physical bread to feed his followers; they all ate and were satisfied.

Jesus prefigures in the miracle of the loaves the perpetual institution that He leaves with His followers: the Eucharist. Jesus humbles Himself to give us His own Body so that we might be sent into the world as Eucharist for others. We are given.