Loaves and Fishes

Jesus faces a dilemma in Today's Gospel.  He's looking at 5,000 hungry people.  All He has to feed them with is five loaves and two fish.  These people are looking to Him for nourishment, but He doesn't have enough to feed them all.  Lucky for Him, He's the Son of God.  He knows exactly what to do.  Drawing inspiration from the 2nd Book of Kings, and the story of Elisha, He feeds all five thousand from the little bit that He has.

Not only does He feed them all, but when they're done eating, there's actually more food left than they started with.  Take that, Elisha!  The people are so impressed they declare Him "the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world."  In fact, Jesus had to withdraw because He was afraid they would carry Him off and make Him king.

As I stand here and look at you, I can relate with this story.  You're sitting there waiting for some words of wisdom......some inspiration to help you make it through the next week.  You expect some Fulton Sheen-like intelligence to flow from this ambo like clean water from a mountain spring.  You're expecting, or at least hoping for, a banquet and all I have is some bread and a couple of fish.  When I prepare a homily, I start with a blank computer screen.  Some times the words come very easily.  Other times, not so much.  Like this week.   Feeding the 5,000 is the only one of Jesus' miracles, aside from the resurrection, that's repeated in all four Gospels.  So, it comes up in the cycle of readings a lot.  We all know the story by heart.,  What the heck can I say about it that hasn't been said hundreds of times before?  I need a minor miracle.

But Jesus comes through for me, just as He did for the people in the story.  You notice that the Gospels never say what kind of fish it was.  It could have been very good, or it could have been very ordinary.   You'd have to think that if the food came from Jesus, it was probably very tasty.  But we don't know for sure.  Likewise, I may not deliver a seafood banquet today, but I'm hoping for at least a Fillet o' Fish.

Anyway,  Jesus always comes through for me, just like He did for all those hungry people on the hill, if I let Him.  The result may be very good, in which case it's through the workings of the Holy Spirit, or it's very bad, which means I got in the way somehow.  But either way, it's food for thought that comes from my fairly empty basket.

So, as I was staring at that blank screen, for some reason I thought of my Aunt Rowena, God rest her soul.  She and Uncle Roy lived in Hannibal, MO.  I was actually born in Hannibal, even though I've lived my whole life, so far, in St. Louis.  But I spent many summer weeks in Hannibal, staying with my aunt and uncle, feeling very much like Tom Sawyer.  There were just as many things for a kid to get into in that town in the 20th century as there were in the 19th, and I did my best to get into as many of them as possible.  Times were much simpler then and I could do just about anything I wanted.  They only lived a block from downtown, so there was plenty for me to do.

My uncle was a building contractor, in the very broadest sense of the term.  He did build things, usually small things like houses.  His real specialty seemed to be tearing stuff down.  That was my favorite part.  In the days before OSHA, and child labor laws, I couldn't wait for Uncle Roy to hand me a hammer and tell me to start hitting stuff.  Tom and Huck had nothing on me.

Uncle Roy's office was in his basement and he owned one truck.  His business probably wasn't something that you'd want to copy, but he liked what he did.  He was also the smartest man I ever knew.

He was one of those people who had great ideas the day after someone else had gotten the patent.  I guess you'd say he was always a day late and a dollar short.  He did have one invention that was very successful.  Unfortunately someone stole his idea and they made the big money, not him.  Mostly my uncle was a dreamer.  So he and my aunt lived their lives in a quiet river town just doing what they did.

Oh, Uncle Roy had one other business.  He was a slum lord.  Unfortunately, he wasn't a very good slum lord.  He never had the heart to throw anyone out on the street because they didn't pay their rent.  And most of his tenants didn't pay their rent.  In fact, he didn't just let them live in his tenements rent-free, he often brought them home for dinner.  Sometimes he brought some of his construction laborers home for dinner.  Sometimes he brought total strangers that he met in the bar home to dinner.  You never knew if there were going to be three people at the kitchen table or thirteen. 

That's why today's Gospel made me think of Aunt Rowena.   No matter how many people put their feet under the table, there was always enough food.  I'm not sure how she did it.  But she did.    My aunt and uncle took Jesus' words to feed the hungry and lived them in their lives.  The gave food and shelter to no telling how many people who needed them, even though they didn't have all that much themselves.

 In the '50s and '60s, Hannibal was like the South. Maybe it still is.  I haven't been there in years.  Dinner was at noon.  Supper was at 6:00.  I never did figure out when they ate lunch.  But supper, the evening meal, was usually left-overs from dinner;  twelve baskets of fragments.

Jesus and Elisha didn't multiply the food to feed themselves.  They did it to feed the hungry.  And when they were done, they had some left over.  In Jesus case, He had more food left over than He started with, proving that God can never be outdone in His generosity. 

When we give to the poor, whether it's food, or clothing, or money, it always comes back to us, often in a greater amount than we gave.  Think about your own life.  How many times has it happened to you?  You give something to someone and the next thing you know, something good has come your way.  That's your loaves and fishes.  That's your twelve baskets left over.  That's my aunt's bottomless soup kettle.

And it isn't just stuff that God multiplies.  It's also our actions.  Cut your neighbor's grass once when he's sick and when you're sick he cuts yours twice.  Visit a friend in the hospital and when you're in the hospital, ten people will come to see you.  In my case, the Holy Spirit multiplies my words, sometimes making the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Keep this in mind when there's yet another second collection...... and we're coming into the season of second collections.  There are people who think the government is the solution to every problem.  Let them take care of it.  But the principal of the loaves and fishes never seems to apply to the government.  In fact, they always seem to need ten times as many loaves and fishes to feed 10% of the people.  Of course they do it with your money. 

The government minimizes our money.  The Church magnifies it.  The difference is one word......faith.  We do our best for our brothers and sisters when we have faith and follow Jesus' example in today's Gospel. 

No, the responsibility for caring for our less-fortunate brothers and sisters falls directly on you and me.  We're called to feed the hungry.  We're called to clothe the poor.  We're called to comfort the grieving.  And, as today's readings remind us, we can never give too much, because God's there for us, making sure that we're taken care of too. 

You know, the Apostles were hungry that day too.  I'm sure they had their eye on that fish and bread.  But they stood by silently as Jesus gave it all away.  It's no coincidence that when Jesus sent them to retrieve the leftovers, there were twelve baskets of food, one basket for each of them..... enough to feed them for several meals........ much more than their share of the two fish and five loaves would have been.

My aunt and uncle never hesitated to help anyone in need, even though they weren't rich people.  But they did the best they could with what they had, and I'm sure they're in heaven today, enjoying the reward for their efforts.  They weren't church-going people, but they were protestants.  In their wildest dreams they could never have imagined themselves being used to inspire a church full of Catholics.  But that's the way God works. I pray for them every day, but I haven't really thought about them in a long time.  But the Holy Spirit made me think of them when I was trying to come up with something to talk about today, and made me see them in an entirely new way. 

That's my loaves and fishes for today.  I hope you share them with others and have twelve baskets left over.

Evangelization and the King of Rock & Roll-- 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Imagine the task that Jesus gives his disciples in today's Gospel.  They're to be the first Christian missionaries.  The word "mission" comes from the Latin for "send", so He's sending them out to be missionaries, to preach the good news.  All they can take with them is a walking stick.  No food.  No money.  No warm cloak to ward off the cold dessert nights.  Not only do they have to preach the Gospel, they have to depend on the kindness of the very people they're trying to evangelize to provide them with food and a place to sleep.

There was no television, or radio, or newspapers, or Internet in those days.  Most likely the people they were going to visit had never heard of Jesus.  They were Jews who were waiting for the Messiah.  But they expected their Savior to come in glory, not to be the son of a carpenter.
The best the disciples could hope for was someone with an open mind.  At  worst they might be openly hostile.  They were essentially beggars with a story to tell and their very survival depended on their ability to deliver the message.  The message?  Repent!  Not necessarily something their audience would want to hear.

Just imagine you're a first century Jew.  You're sitting on your front porch, maybe drinking an iced tea and these two guys walk up the sidewalk.  They're dirty and sweaty and they want to tell you that the Messiah has come and they're His representatives.  This glorious Messiah that your people have been waiting for for centuries has finally come and He's sent these two to tell you about it.  The Son of the all-powerful God hasn't even provided these guys with money or food.  They want you to believe their fantastic story AND to take them in for the night.    These migrant preachers, not very good preachers at that, want YOU to repent.  Oy!

Remember, these weren't really preachers, or even public speakers.  They were fishermen and tax collectors and other common working men.  Their faith would have to sustain them.  Jesus warned them that they wouldn't necessarily get a warm reception.  He told them, "Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet in testimony against them."  I would imagine that there was a lot of foot shaking going on.

But they drove out demons and healed the sick.  Somehow they got the job done.  Of course, we know how they did it.  They did it by faith.

Today, when we think about missionaries, we usually think of brave men and women who travel long distances to spread the faith.  So we don't forget about them, the Church reminds us occasionally by asking us for money to support one foreign mission or another.  And, that's good.  This Gospel story is obviously telling us that evangelization is important.  Most of us have no desire to travel to Africa or South America to spread the good news, so we put a few dollars in an envelope and leave the heavy lifting to others.

But what about spreading the word a little more locally.  While our contributions may help get the message out to foreign lands, what about the guy who lives across the street who can't remember the last time he was inside a church?  Who's going to evangelize him?  Isn't that up to you and me?  That's something we can do and we don't even have to wear sandals.

Unfortunately, we Catholics aren't known for reaching out.  Our faith is the most community-centered faith of all, yet we tend to approach it as individuals.  Our faith revolves around communion, the common meal we share with every other Catholic in the world, but we don't usually go out of our way to help others share in that meal.  

Some Christian churches do nothing but evangelize.  Where the purpose of our Mass is to share in Christ's Body and Blood, there are churches where the entire focus is to get people converted.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm not dissing anyone's faith.  In fact, there is plenty we could learn from some of our protestant brothers and sisters when it comes to spreading the good news.

In the church where I was brought up, we did it with food.  Not with heavenly food, the Eucharist, but with beef stew and cherry pie.  It's called fellowship and we had it every week.  People would bring their friends to the fellowship which was a pot luck dinner.  Of course, the fried chicken came with strings attached.  There would be gentle, and not so gentle nudges from the pastor during dinner.  With any luck at all, they'd have you singing "Amazing Grace" before you got to the dessert table.

Maybe we don't evangelize because we don't think we know enough.  But what did the disciples know?  They knew Jesus.  But so do you and I.  In fact, we know Him better than they did because we know the rest of the story.  We know He died and rose again.  We know He defeated death.  The disciples didn't know that.  But their faith was strong enough for them to go out and evangelize, even though they were risking their earthly lives.  But it is easy to be embarrassed if someone asks a question we can't answer.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret and make a suggestion.  Here's the secret.  There are enough non-practicing Catholics to keep you and me busy for the rest of our natural lives, no matter how old we are.  A lot of them are in our own families.   You don't have to go door-to-door to find them.  You know where they are.  They may not be open to a full-blown religious discussion right now, but be patient. 

Here's the suggestion.  Drop hints.  Let them see how blessed you are to be a part of Jesus' Church.  Save the nagging. Be gentle. Lead by example.   Work your way up to asking them to come to church with you;  Maybe on a special occasion; a birthday or anniversary. 

Here's another secret.  I'm blessed to be a minister in a Catholic hospital.  I get to visit people of all faiths.  They know that I'm a minister and they expect a religious conversation.  I know, in advance from their chart, what their faith is. In nine years I've had one person ask me to leave.  (A protestant minister.)  I have some of the best discussions in hospital rooms, especially with people who aren't Catholic.  But here's the most interesting thing.  You'd be amazed at how many people say they're Catholics but when you ask them if they'd like communion, they tell you that they haven't been to church in 30 years.  No matter how long they've been away from church, they still consider themselves Catholic.

On the other hand, non-Catholic Christians who haven't been to church in a long time almost always say they don't belong to a church.  There's a permanence to being a Catholic, no matter how long you've been away.  I think you have to understand that before you try to get someone to come back.  Sometimes I can persuade the patient to speak to a priest while they're in the hospital.  Some times I can't.  But I always try.

So, maybe you would love to go door-to-door in your neighborhood looking for lapsed Catholics and potential converts.  Good for you!  Go for it!  Or maybe you're like me and would rather find people where they are and use a little gentle persuasion.  Good for you too!  You don't have to have a walking stick and sandals to do the Lord's work.

In fact, the best way to evangelize is to just live your Catholic faith every single day.  We all know what St. Francis said, "Always preach the Gospel and if necessary use words."  You may never know what effect your actions have on others.  But rest assured, they will have an effect.

Here's an interesting story.  We've been inundated for the last two weeks with "news" about the death of Michael Jackson.  We've had twenty-four hour coverage of his life, at least the good parts.  There's even a move to put him on a postage stamp and declare a national day of mourning.  I guess it's just a sign of our celebrity-obsessed society.  But there was another famous singer who died at an early age, Elvis Presley.  Elvis passed away before CNN and MSNBC and all the other twenty-four hour news channels, so I don't remember there being quite as big an uproar when he died. 

But here's something I'll bet you didn't know about the "king of rock and roll."  Delores Hart was a young actress who appeared with Elvis in two movies, one called "Loving You" in 1957 and "King Creole" in 1958.  Hart was the first woman that Elvis ever kissed in a movie.  She and Elvis would get together when they weren't working and read the Bible and Elvis would often question her on various passages and topics.  In 1963 Delores Hart left show business and became a Benedictine nun.  Did she plant any kind of seed with the singer back in '57 and '58?

We don't know for sure.  But in 1969 he starred in another movie called "Change of Habit."  In the movie he sang at a Catholic mass.  Granted, it was just a part he played, but it's an interesting twist in the career of someone who had been raised a true Southern Baptist in the deep south. 

In 1972 Presley recorded an album called "Elvis Now."  The first song he recorded for the album, one he insisted on including was called "The Mystery of the Rosary."  The song included the words to the "Hail Mary."  It's a very Catholic song.

Finally, after he died, there were some Catholic books found in his personal library including "The City of God" by St. Augustine, and "The Key of Heaven" a book of Catholic prayers and instructions.  The second book was full of notations and comments in Elvis' hand.

We don't know if he had planned to become a Catholic before his death but we do know that he was very interested in Catholic theology.  He obviously had some kind of devotion to the Blessed Mother.  We also don't know if Delores Hart started him on this path twenty years earlier.  But there does seem to be a connection and it just shows that  you never know what effect you're having on someone else, or how long it might take for the seed to bear fruit.

Jesus told the disciples to go out into the world with just sandals, a tunic, and a walking stick and spread the good news.  That was how things were done in the first century.  People were scattered all over and you had to go to them.  Today we have much more contact with our fellow human beings.  They see how we live our lives.  And that's how we can do our part to spread the faith.

We can't all go on missionary trips to foreign lands.  Some of us just aren't cut out to go door-to-door looking for converts.  But we can still do our part.  And our part is to bring as many people as possible to the Gospel.  That's our mission.  It doesn't matter so much how we plant the seeds, what does matter is that we bear much fruit.  You and I are missionaries, often without knowing it.  The best way for us to enjoy eternal life is to bring as many people with us as possible.

July 4, 1776

 

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776.
THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE
THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

WHEN, in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s GOD entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the Causes which impel them to the Separation.

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their CREATOR, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.  Click here for the full text.

Two hundred and thirty-three years ago fifty-six brave men signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that they might be signing their own death warrants.  In fact, several of them were killed.  Some lost family members, some lost all their property.  But not one of them, even under threat of death, ever recanted or disavowed the Declaration.

Notice, too, that the writers included references to God twice in this introduction and that the document did not demand man-made rights.  All they were asking for were  rights that were ” endowed by the Creator”. 

History tells us that this “grand experiment” was successful, at least so far.  But 233 years is a blink of an eye in the history of the world.  Great nations have come and gone.  All men and women of good will must work together to maintain freedom for all.

Here in America, July 4th, Independence Day, is a time to reflect on just where we started, where we’ve come, and where we want to be in another two centuries.

Rush Limbaugh, Jr. (No, not THAT Rush Limbaugh.  This is his dad.) gave an excellent speech on the signers of the Declaration of Independence, called “The Americans Who Risked Everything“.  It’s worth a look, even for our non-American friends.  It puts a lot of things in context.

GOD BLESS AMERICA!