Homily: To Be Fed

Year B / Ordinary Time / Week 17 / Sunday (Rite of Acceptance @COTT)

Readings: 2 Kings 4.42-44 / Psalm 144.10-11,15-16, 17-18 (R/v cf 16) / Ephesians 4.1-6 / John 6.1-15

Sisters and brothers, have you ever tried to feed a baby animal, like a kitten or a puppy or a lamb?  You probably filled you hand with some food, and then extended it towards the animal.  You probably coaxed it, encouraging it with soothing words. You might have tried to move closer to feed it, then, waited patiently for it to come to you.

Did you pay attention to how the animal approached you eventually? Probably, it crept  up to you cautiously. Maybe it circled around, looking at you, looking at the food in your open hand. Maybe it came up close, sniffed the food a bit, then withdrew, and then repeated these steps a few times. Then, maybe after some time, it came right up to you, tentatively taking some nibbles of the food, before eating out of your hand. 

Maybe then you touched it, patted it, stroke its back. Maybe then, the both of you felt comfortable with each other.

Have you ever wondered what allows the animal to reach this moment?  I’d like to suggest it is trust.  The animal's trust that it could come to you safely. That it could come because you would feed its hunger. Come to you because it sensed you would care for it. Come to you because it wanted to. Come because it trusted you.

Isn’t this a bit like what our friends here on the RCIA journey have been doing thus far?  Whether they are seeking Baptism or full communion with the Catholic Church, they have glimpsed something of God and are seeking to know about more about God. They want to draw closer to God. Some may have stepped away, only to find that their desire for God draws them back here again.

And so, they have all began their RCIA journey. They have come, I believe, because they trust God will meet them and draw them into fullness of life with him.

Today’s Rite of Acceptance celebrates their trust to let God draw them closer to Himself. For the unbaptized, their trust is their ‘yes’ is to become catechumens preparing for Baptism. For the baptized from other Christian traditions , their trust is their ‘yes’ is to live the Christian faith more fully and truly as Catholics. Their ‘yes’ is their commitment to accomplishing these.

What we must also celebrate  today is God’s trust in them to come to Him and to let Him lead them.

This is why today’s Rite of Acceptance involves movement. Movement from outside that expresses their desire to say ‘yes’ to their entrance amongst us, and shortly to them standing in front of the altar and making their commitment to God with a firm ‘yes’. 

And where will their ‘yes’, their trust, lead them to? Not to a place, but to the person of Jesus in whom God meets them as they come to Him.  Jesus who extends and opens his hands to feed them. Jesus who also enlarges his heart to embrace them and who offers his life to be their life. They come to Jesus who shows them the way to God and the fullness of life. 

This is in fact the good news today’s gospel proclaims. Often, we focus on the miracle of the multiplication of the five loaves and two fish Jesus did. But there is a greater miracle at work: Jesus loving us and wanting us to live.

We see this in how he feeds the multitude. He has done his work of preaching God and God’s love. He knows they hunger. He does not have to feed them, but he does because they really hunger for God. So, he makes real what he proclaimed as Good News about God: God loves by giving life.

Feeding the multitude from what little is available is more than a miracle of multiplying to feed the hungry. It is more truly God’s gratuitous grace for us to live. Jesus’ actions expressed his unreserved love to provide God’s boundless abundance to all peoples, including you and me.

Our friends in RCIA desire this grace to live with God.  This is why they are making their commitment to prepare well for next Easter when they will be baptised and received fully into the Catholic Church.

What about us who come to Mass every Sunday, pray daily, serve others often and strive to live holy lives?  Do we desire God as fervently, as single-mindedly, as they do?

Where their desire, and our desire too, will lead everyone to is Jesus. He alone fulfils the deep human longing in all of us to have enough. And if we are honest, to have enough and a little more.

Today’s readings remind us that we will have enough, and, in fact, a little more than enough. We cannot accomplish this through our actions.  Only God’s good and gracious action gives us these always. The Lord fed the 100 people in the first reading and there was some left over. Jesus fed 5,000 and more in today’s gospel passage, and there was enough left over to fill 12 wicker baskets. Always enough, with a lot more left over. All of this is God’s loving, saving action, at work in our lives and for our wellbeing, which is what salvation also means.

Haven’t we too received enough from God in our lives? Enough love each day to carry on with life? Enough forgiveness when reconciliation is needed? Enough laughter and joy when all seems dark and sad? Even enough mercy and hope to get us through un expected struggles and pains?  And in all these moments, weren’t there always a little more left over for us?  Isn’t God still doing all this in our lives today?

Why would God do this? Simply because God knows our longing to believe in God, our yearning to live our faith in a manner worthy of the call we have received, and our striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace amongst us. All these make up the hope that is God’s call for us to be Christians, as our second reading reminds us.

I believe our RCIA friends heard this call of God and have this hope. It gives them the trust to come and take the next steps today. I know the rest of us have also heard this call and we have this same hope. This is why we are here every Sunday at Eucharist: we trust God will meet us in our sinfulness, forgive us in mercy and make us better though his saving love.

Isn’t this hope then the trust we need to have faith, and, more so, to live in faith? If our answer is ‘yes’, then, let us come like lambs to Jesus, our Good Shepherd. Come to him who wants to love and care for us. Come to him whose deepest desire is to save and uplift us.  Yes, let us come to Jesus for it is only “the hand of the Lord who can feed us and answer all our needs” (Responsorial Psalm 144.16).

Preached at Church of the Transfiguration

photo by john hunt (internet)