The multiplication of the loaves and the fish are a foreshadowing of the mystery of the Eucharist and also a lesson on sharing.

This gospel begins by giving us a glimpse of how Jesus encountered the crowd.  He taught them.  He healed them.  And he did ever so much more.  He no doubt noticed that they were weary— weary of following him all day; weary of suffering; weary of being hungry; weary of listening; weary, perhaps, even of life itself.  Jesus is ever the compassionate One.  Rather than dismissing the crowd to fend for themselves and their needs, as the Twelve suggest, Jesus has them “sit down.”  He invites them to rest.  He probably instilled in them a new kind of expectation.  Would the teaching and healing continue, but now with them sitting and more comfortable?  Yes, the teaching and healing would continue, but not at all in the way they might have expected. 

Something new was to unfold.  Something entirely new was to happen.

                We are that crowd today.  Jesus encounters us in the same way as the crowd so long ago:  he teaches us, he heals us.  And he does so much more for us, too.  Like the crowd in the gospel, we, too, are weary—weary of terror and violence; weary of nature’s storms and destruction; weary of illness and suffering; weary of broken relationships and unkept promises; weary, perhaps, even of life itself.  Jesus invites us to come together to “sit down” and rest.  His teaching and healing continue today as we proclaim the word and present our needs to this Jesus who is ever the compassionate One.  And, just like with the crowd long ago, something entirely new is happening here, too.

                Jesus describes himself as the bread of life for a hungry world.  Jesus fed the hungry and tired crowd with the few meager loaves and fishes, and “all ate and were satisfied” and “the leftover fragments . . . filled twelve wicker baskets.” 

The twelve baskets of leftovers indicate that in God’s kingdom there would be plenty, there would be abundance, there would be fullness.  All would be fed.  This kingdom is among us in Jesus’ Person and ministry.  The miracle here goes beyond the multiplication of food for weary, hungry people; the miracle is really about Jesus’ self-giving, his continuing care, his divine Presence freely given to people hungry and who are invited to eat and drink the heavenly Food that only Jesus can provide.  The miracle told in this gospel is a foreshadowing of what he would do at the Last Supper, what he would do with the two disciples at Emmaus after the Resurrection.  In all three instances of eating, Jesus uses very similar words:  take, bless, break, and give.  These are the same actions we do today in our celebration of Eucharist.  Jesus today is feeding us.  But now not with multiplied loaves and fishes, but with his very Self, his very Body and Blood.

 Jesus is ever the compassionate One.  Each time we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, Jesus continues to give himself to us as our nourishment, as our heavenly Food.  He notices our needs, our weariness, our hungers and feeds us with his very Body and Blood.  No longer mere bread and wine, what we receive through the action of the Holy Spirit is the real Presence of the risen Christ.  Ordinary bread and wine are changed by the Holy Spirit into the truly extraordinary Gift of His very Body and Blood.

The Blessed Sacrament has been reserved beyond the celebration of the Eucharist from the earliest times.  The primary purpose of this reservation is to have the Bread from Heaven available for the sick and those who are dying.  Jesus is ever the compassionate One.  In our gravest need, he is there to strengthen and nourish us.  A second purpose for the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament is to have an extended time for adoration outside of Mass.  Here we can take as much time as we want to adore the risen Christ present to us in the reserved Blessed Sacrament.

Additionally, the multiplication of the loaves and the fish in today’s Gospel is a lesson in sharing.  Jesus receives the gift of a few fish and five barley loaves and multiplies these to feed more than five thousand.  Christ challenges us to offer the little we have – either time, talent, or treasure – and trust that God can multiply our gift.  In John’s account of the multiplication of the loaves and fish, it is a young boy who gave his lunch away, risking to go hungry.

The apostles want Jesus to dismiss the crows to take care of themselves.  This is practical advice, but it does not reflect the values of the kingdom that Jesus wants to teach.  In the kingdom of God, people look after one another; they do not push each other away the moment the needs arise.

Just as Jesus asked the Twelve to distribute the bread and the fish, he asks us to distribute ourselves as well as the goods of the earth so that all may be fed, clothed, housed and rescued from chaos into peace.  If we do this, the world will be realigned to God’s will and the original design for creation.  It will also cost us everything.  Our willingness to do this, to allow this to happen to us, is part of our response to God’s covenant with us.

Recognizing Jesus in the Eucharist demands that we recognize Jesus also in the hungry crowd.  Adoring Jesus present in the Eucharist requires that we serve Jesus present in our neighbor.   In the words of the dismissal rite at Mass, “go in peace glorifying the lord by our lives,”  this is not a throw-away statement at the end of the Mass.   Rather, this is the mission given to us as a Eucharistic people, recognizing Jesus in the Eucharist demands that we recognize Jesus also in the hungry crowd.  We are to be a Eucharistic people 24 hours a day in the ways we serve Jesus present in our neighbor.

For us to experience God, we need the experience of human love and friendship.

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Trinity.  We celebrate the mystery of the inner life of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The inner life of God is communal, is relational; it is family.  In contemplating the Trinity, we reflect on the family of God. 

Today is a feast of God’s love and mercy.  In proclaiming this Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis writes that mercy reveals the very nature of the Most Holy Trinity. 

The mystery of the Trinity can only be approached by analogy through our own experience of the power of love.  What we can understand points to what we cannot fully grasp, the inner life of God.  But we glimpse it.  God is a community, three divine persons emptying themselves into one another in an infinite cycle that is the source of all love.

To grasp the inner life of God in the mystery of Trinity, we don’t need to be theologians; rather we need to experience the great gift of friendship and love and mercy in life.  For us, Jesus is the face of the Father’s love and mercy.

Human friendship has the power to free people from the isolation we all experience as individuals.  At its highest point, friendship has the power to overcome the defenses and barriers that keep us separate.  We anticipate the thoughts and the needs of the beloved as our own, and we abandon ourselves in this exchange.  This is the beauty of love and friendship whether it is a young couple passionately in love, or the quiet intimacy of the long-married couple or with old friends whose habits are intertwined with affection and humor and familiarity.

It is only by analogy, but human relationships give us a glimpse into the mystery of the Trinity.  What does this mean?  For us to experience God in our hearts, we need to experience and value the friendship and the love of another in our hearts.  For me, God’s presence is revealed to me in family and in the friendships of my life.  When I love and am loved, I know God in my heart.

In some ways, the feast of the Trinity is the feast of family life.   We come from God in creation and we return home to God as we enter the fullness of God’s eternal life.  What will help us better appreciate where we have come and where we are going to is family life.  In the inner life of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, God is communal, God is family – the divine family.

Our experience of God is discovered in prayer, yes; our experience of God is also discovered in family – your family life.  Trust me I am not presuming your family life is perfect for you to experience  God.  I was born at night, but not last night.  There is struggle in all family life; to be a family is hard work at times.  But God dwells in your family life.  This I know.  In fact, there is no dimension of your family in which God is not present – in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad.

The mystery of the divine family in the Blessed Trinity is perfect in the relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

But the mystery of God’s love and mercy is that God comes to us in our weakness, in our brokenness, in the craziness of our family life.  God’s love for us is unending.  What I like to say is there is nothing we can do to stop God from loving us.

Our response to the Trinitarian love of God for us is one of gratitude.  And so, in this Eucharist, we gather to give thanks to the Lord our God.   When we know the merciful love of Jesus in the depths of our hearts, we will love with an attitude of gratitude for our days. 

What are we to make of the messiness of our family life -- when a couple are struggling to love because past hurts keep them from reaching out in love to each other, when parenting their children seems to getting derailed by the failure of children to listen to their parents and by the failure of parents to listen to their children.  It goes both ways, of course.

The Spirit-filled grace we seek is to see in the struggles of our family life, we realize more fully our need for God’s grace and to be more immersed in the mystery of God’s love for us.  Jesus immerses Himself in our limitations and our struggles.  Through united to God, Jesus empties himself of divine privilege and becomes one of us and dies like a slave.  In so doing, God is pouring out mercy to a broken world.  Our brokenness does not keep us from receiving the love of God; rather, it is because of our brokenness that God send his Son into the world to be our friend as well as our Savior and Lord.

A crazy thought: I wonder if the three persons of the Trinity now use their I-phones or any form of social media to communicate with each other.  How do Father, Son, and Holy Spirit communicate and love each other?  Simply we know it is a person to person relationship in the one God.

My suggestion for the grace we seek in celebrating this deep mystery of the inner life of God is that when we commit ourselves to using our I-phone a little bit less when we are together as a family and we value a little bit more the beauty of person to person family time.  Make sense?  What will it take for your family to take that first step?

At the end of the day, it is in the human love and friendship we have with each other that is the lens in which we will discover the love and mercy of God that is poured on us from day to day, from moment to moment.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Come Holy Spirit. Fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.

Announcing the jubilee year of mercy, Pope Francis challenged us to proclaim God’s mercy to everyone without exception…again and again.

Initially the disciples were locked in the upper room out of fear.  On the Day of Pentecost those locked doors were thrown open;  the fear in the disciples  was replaced with a Spirit-filled courage and enthusiasm.  They were now fearless proclaimers of the Word of God.

What had changed for the disciples?  They received the Holy Spirit.

And so we pray on this day of Pentecost:  Come Holy Spirit.  Fill the hearts of your faith and kindle in them the fire of your love.

Pentecost is called the birthday of the church because at the moment the Holy Spirit entered the followers of Jesus, they became the Body of Christ in the world.  However, the story in the Acts of the Apostles suggests that this birth did not happen without serious birth pangs.

Pentecost marks perhaps the most  important transition the followers of Jesus had to face after He departed from them after the Ascension.  Jesus is gone.  In Jesus’ absence, we find a frightened, doubting group,  perhaps arguing among themselves, but feeling abandoned and totally unprepared.

How do we identify with the disciples in the time immediately  after the Lord’s Ascension into heaven?  How do we experience the absence of Jesus in our lives?  For me, it is those times when I am going in a thousand different directions,  and there is a lacked of centeredness in my life.  It is like when I have lost my soul.  It is when I am trying to do too much myself and not trusting in the help of others and not trusting in the grace of God.

When do I need to do?  Stop and breathe.  Breathe in the Holy Spirit and breathe out the fears and anxieties of my life.

This is the great grace of  Pentecost.  Breathe in the Holy Spirit.  Claim the gifts of the Holy Spirit that are given to us.  We are a spirit-filled Pentecost people.  Pentecost celebrates that the Gospel of Jesus fulfills the deepest yearnings of the human heart.

What are the gifts of the Holy Spirit to us?

The GIFT OF MERCY  -- In this jubilee year of mercy,  we are to be missionaries of mercy proclaiming God’s mercy to everyone without exception…again and again.

The GIFT OF FORGIVENESS  -- To always be grateful for God’s unending love for us and the gift to forgive those people in your life who don’t deserve it.

The GIFT  OF WELCOME --  So much so that there are no strangers of enemies among us.

The GIFT  OF HOPE --  Always and everywhere you refuse to be discouraged by the challenges of life.

The GIFT OF JOY –  All of life is a gift  of God for which we are to be thankful.

The GIFT  OF FAITH –  That trust in knowing that God goes with us in all experiences of life.

We have the power to change lives – ourselves and others?

These are the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  This is the grace of the Feast of Pentecost we celebrate today.

Are these gifts too gifts  to be true or are they really God’s precious gifts given to us?  Come Holy Spirit.  Fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.

The great truth of Pentecost  -- for the first disciples and for us as well  -- is that the Holy Spirit has the power to enlarge and expand the human heart if we  allow the Spirit of Jesus to grow and enliven us from within.  The power to forgive, the power to welcome and to receive all others in Jesus’s name is the power and the grace of Pentecost.  Come Holy Spirit.  Fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of  your love.

On this Day of Pentecost may we all take a few moments to reflect and claim our God-given giftedness.  Further, may we all commit ourselves to using our God-given giftedness in the service of one another.

Happy Mother's Day!

Like you, my thoughts and prayers this day are drawn to my own mother who first taught me to pray and who first loved me into life.  My mom was the first person I trusted in life, and she taught me that trusting indeed is a component of all significant relationships. My mother went home to God in September of 1979, and yet, her spirit and her love are still with me to this day. We remember in prayer today all of our mothers.  Their gift to us makes us who we are.  May we always have grateful hearts for the ways we have been loved into life by our parents.

I also am mindful and pray for all the mothers of our parish community.  Thank you for the gift of love you share with your family, and thank you for the gift of love you share with our parish family.  Thank you for reminding us again and again that loving and being loved is the most significant component of our discipleship of the Lord Jesus.  There is nothing on earth as valuable as a mother’s love for her child.  This gives us the capacity to love and be loved for the rest of our lives.

Today’s Gospel comes from the priestly prayer of Jesus on the night before he died.  Jesus prayed to His heavenly Father:  “I have made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.”  This prayer of Jesus can also be the beautiful prayer of the mothers of our faith community.  Moms make the name of Jesus known to your children.  This is the sacred spiritual dimension of how you parent your children.

Moreover, in the ways you have been loved by the merciful love of Jesus throughout your life, you are now missioned to share the love you have received with your children.  You are to give as a gift from the giftedness you have received from our loving God.

I also am mindful of the love and inspiration we receive from Mary, the mother of Jesus and the spiritual mother of us all. “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.  Amen.”  May we pray the rosary on mother’s day seeking the intercession of our mother Mary.

In the last moments of life, there is often a sacred exchange between the living and the dying.

The final wishes or words of a loved one near death have a way of remaining with us.  As a priest, I can think of many occasions when I have had the privilege of being with parishioners and/ or family members as they witness a loved one prepare to go home to God.  The Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick is a most beautiful encounter of our healing God and one who is very sick. 

Powerful words between the dying and the living are so often exchanged at moments like this.   I can think of a parishioner whose last words to his wife were:  “I love you.”  His last words to me were:  “I am ready to go home to God.”  These beautiful last words of this parishioner are seared in my memory.

The Gospel today are the last words of Jesus as he spoke to his disciples at the Last Supper on the night before he died.  This is Jesus’ going away conversation with his disciples.  Listen again to the last words of Jesus to His disciples:  “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you.  Peace, I leave with you; my peace I give to you.”

Have you ever thought about the gift you would pass to your loved ones?  Many of us have a will in which we carefully think what to do with your assets after your death, or are you going to leave it up to Uncle Sam to dispose of your possessions.  It goes without saying that it is a good idea to have a will.  But when we think about a will, we usually think about our material assets and who gets what.  Today’s Gospel is taken from the last will and testament of Jesus in His conversation with his apostles.

The farewell gift of Jesus was a not a bequest of his earthly goods.  It was a gift far more important that a bequest of earthly gifts.

But even so, Jesus is departing from this earth and, as every dying person, wishes to reveal a gift.  However, it is not a bequest of earthly goods.  Jesus names peace as what he wants to leave.  He immediately specifies it as my peace.  It is not like the peace of this world.   In the peace of this world, whenever everything is going well, we can manage a certain amount of inner calm.  However, when bad times come, calm is replaced by anxiety and fear.  We shake with the wind, vacillate with the circumstances.

But the revelation of Jesus’ dying brings a peace that is rooted in the conviction that nothing can separate us from the love of God.  This non-abandoning presence of God is revealed in the cross of Christ and is the source of our inner peace.

What is the peace that Jesus brings?  With hectic schedules, where time for family, friends, work, study, errands – and relaxation – must be planned for each day, we look for ways to simplify our lifestyles to find some peace.  Bands and investment services offer any number of services to manage our money, so that we can have “peace of mind.”

The peace Jesus gives is not imposed but given as a gift, not just a brief vacation but a centering peace in which Jesus says to his disciples:  “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”

   

The Lord does not leave us  orphans.  Rather he sends the Holy Spirit to be with us all our days.  The inner gift of peace is the Lord’s lasting legacy to us.

But the peace that is Jesus’s gift for us can only be given birth by living the Gospel.  A beautiful example of the Christian dream of peace can be seen in the first Scripture reading taken from the Acts of the Apostle about life in the early Christian community.  The Church worked out a new peace through disagreement.  Each side was given a chance to represent its position and each side was listened to.  In the end, each side also gave up some of its demands, so that a new consensus emerged.  Christians, it was decided, need not follow all Jewish customs (like circumcision) but they need to follow some, which were considered essential.  Disagreement was not crushed or avoided but acknowledged, and people of good will were led to a compromise.

This day may you be aware of the inner peace that is the precious gift to us from our loving God.