6th Sunday after Pentecost - July 24, 2011

6th Sunday after Pentecost – July 24, 2011

(Gospel Mark. 8: 1-9)

(Epistle Romans 6: 3-11)

In his Epistle today, St. Paul speaks of how Baptism changes our lives through the forgiveness of sins, “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with [Jesus] that the body of sin may be destroyed, and that we may serve sin no longer,” so that we also reckon ourselves “to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God.”

Three thousand years ago King David was established for us as a type of confession and repentance and of a person being “dead to sin, but alive to God.” After his sin with Bathsheba and his murder of her husband Uriah David was confronted with these sins by Nathan the Prophet. Despite his high position, despite all his wealth and power, David did not resent Nathan for chastising him, rather, he made an immediate and complete confession of his sins and wept with sorrow for what he did. There is a saying still in use today: How far the mighty fall. But it is not the might and wealth that makes great men fall, it is their pride that makes them fall so far. King David rejected that false pride and made a humble and complete confession and repentance of his sins. What we admire today of David is not his wealth and power but rather his humility of heart and love of God. That has survived these past three thousand years, and will continue to survive into the future. David’s wealth and power died with him as it does with all of us.

Today’s Gospel reading tells us of the miraculous multiplication of seven loaves and a few fish. A similar miracle occurred some time previous to this as reported by St. Matthew (Mt. 14: 13-21) and involved five loaves of bread and two fish. Our Lord didn’t always feed people through miracles. If He had, people would have followed Him for the sake of the food and not for what He had to say. In today’s reading we know He saw these people were in danger, because He said, “If I shall send them away fasting to their home, they will faint in the way; for some of them came from afar off,” and so He fed them.

The Apostles still were hesitant to believe in His power, even after the miracles He performed previous to this. And so they asked Him, “From whence can any one fill them with bread here in the wilderness?” Jesus did not rebuke them for their unbelief, and by not rebuking them He teaches us today that we should not rebuke those who are ignorant of the Truth or those who do not understand. Instead He asked his disciples, “How many loaves have ye?” 

After having the people sit down Jesus took the few loaves of bread and gave thanks to His Father – thereby teaching us to give thanks for our daily bread. After giving thanks He did not give the bread to the people Himself, but gave it to His Apostles to distribute, and the same with the fish. In doing this, our Lord shows us that His gifts, the Sacraments and especially the Eucharist, are to be dispensed by his priests, as His Apostles were later to become.

There is a fundamental lesson in today’s Gospel about who Jesus Christ is. He says to His Disciples,” I have compassion on the multitude.” In this statement we see the sympathy and pity of human tenderness that shows us Jesus was fully human. And in the miracle of feeding thousands of people with a few loaves of bread and a few fish we see our Lord’s Divinity. Today’s Gospel is a clear presentation of the truth that Jesus Christ has two natures, one human and one Divine.

Both miracles of the multiplication of loaves and fishes, the one reported by St. Matthew and the one from today’s Gospel, took place on a mountain. Seven hundred fifty years before these events Isaias the Prophet described the coming Messiah saying “the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of mountains.” (Isaias. 2: 2) So long before the Messiah appeared his lofty bearing was described for us.

Who are those our Lord speaks of who “came from afar off?” Certainly some came from a great physical distance, but mystically, the meaning refers to those who after sins of the flesh, and sins of lying, thieving, murdering and whatever, have now repented and come to the service of the Lord. For the more a man sins, the further away from God he is. Those Jews who knew Jesus to be the Messiah came to Him from close at hand, because they had learned of Him through the Law and the Prophets. But the Gentiles who believed Christ, in a manner of speaking came from afar because no sacred writings from their past had prepared them to believe in Him.

A miracle is a supernatural event caused by God, but there are many so-called Modernists in the Church today who reject these miraculous occurrences.  I don’t know why we call them Modernists because there is nothing modern about a lack of faith. The world has suffered from these people throughout its history. Let us call them instead modern-errorists. They don’t believe  in miracles so they want to redefine the word “miracle,” and  tell us that the “miracle” that occurred on these mountains was really an act of sharing, that these people saw that Jesus and His disciples were willing to share whatever they had and so the people also opened their purses and shared the food they had and that’s how all the people were fed. That’s baloney!

This miraculous event is very clearly described for us in the Bible. But what if this event happened the way the Modern-errorists claim,? Then that means the Bible is in error. If the Bible is in error, then it is not the revealed Word of God, and if the Bible is not the revealed Word of God, then it is a short step to saying that Jesus Christ is a fraud and a liar. This shows us what happens when we depart from the faith given to us by Jesus Christ, and handed down to us by those appointed by Him, His Apostles and their successors, the true bishops and priests. When we depart from the True Faith we only end up worshiping ourselves as gods, false gods that is, because we have lost our faith in the true God.

Perhaps these modern-errorists proceed from good faith, or perhaps they want to deliberately destroy the True Faith. In either event, it is a peculiar form of madness when people start thinking they can contradict God, Who cannot be contradicted. +++

We Celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass