AUGUST 1/2, 2020
Back in late February or maybe early March, I was in Target in Petaluma, California. That’s where I was stationed up until 6 weeks ago. And the news was ramping up about the Pandemic. It wasn’t called a pandemic yet, but some people on YouTube or other social media were starting to use the word pandemic.
Anyway, I was walking around Target and probably picking up groceries and looking at appliances, when I walked down the paper products aisle. And I stopped dead in my tracks. There were only three packages of toilet paper left – two eight packs and one six pack. I’d seen this sort of thing in the past in California; during the Napa fires. And so, I figured I could load up on twenty-four rolls of toilet paper … just in case this went on for a while.
In case you might be wondering – how much toilet paper does one man need … or for that matter, a household or family need … there is a website HOWMUCHTOILETPAPER.COM that lets you calculate your needs. I figured that with what I already had on hand, I was good for six months. And, the lockdown only lasted roughly 90 days - give or take.
The strange thing is, how for many of us, we have never known shortages. In the old Soviet Union, there were long lines to get basic food items or personal necessities. During the Second World War, there were rationing stamps. And I guess for us, in this pandemic time, there are shortages, too.
Yet many people began hoarding, some early on. And others were left with nothing until shelves were restocked, and even then, many things disappeared rather quickly - or so it seemed.
Today is the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, and on the surface, our readings seem to have a theme of “food.”
But scratch that surface and not too far down, we see that even when food is given - miraculously or figuratively - we are to move deeper into a Divine Mystery.
In the first reading from Isaiah 55, we hear “Come!” But as we read further, we are called to “Seek!” And finally we are drawn into the presence of the LORD … where we have no other choice but to “Worship.”
In the Gospel, we hear of the miraculous multiplication of five loaves and two fish which fed five thousand men and uncounted women and children; and the left-overs filled twelve wicker baskets.
Some modern commentators would strip this event of its miraculous nature. Claiming that Jesus inspired the crowd to share what they had and to abandon their selfishness. If that is the case, then the evangelists were idiots for recounting this story as miraculous. And that contemporary twist on a psychological theme is nothing more than poppycock.
Rather, the repeated recounting of the multiplication of loaves and fishes by all of the Gospel writers is to point to the “sign” of the Messianic Banquet. What Isaiah speaks of thirty chapters earlier when he says:
On this mountain* the LORD of hosts * will provide for all peoples * a feastIn this pericope, we hear that Jesus had “pity” for the vast crowd – or rather “his heart was moved with pity for them”. The word, rendered here as “pity” has more customarily been translated as “compassion.”
It is translated from a Greek word that is a mouthful: σπλαγχνίζομαι (splagch-ni-zo-mai) meaning “moved as to one’s bowels with compassion.” So, not just pity, and not just compassion … but rather, what we might call a “gut wrenching” pity or a “gut wrenching” compassion.
Jesus uses this same word in the Gospels in three parables (1) the master who forgives the servant (who in turn does NOT forgive his fellow servant) ; (2) the motivating feeling of the Good Samaritan (which is not shared by the priest and the levite) ; and (3) the father at the end of the story of the Prodigal Son when he sees his son returning home.
Each of the characters in these parables experienced a gut wrenching compassion, and acted in a way that perhaps can only be called “not so normal.”
And the Gospel writers also apply this term – gut wrenching compassion – to Jesus, just before He feeds the multitudes, heals two blind men, heals a leper, drives out a demon from a man’s son, and raises the only son of the widow of Naim.
Based on this limited data set, it would seem that σπλαγχνίζομαι (splagch-ni-zo-mai) – gut wrenching pity or compassion – is accompanied by miracles … and that we are called to dig deep in our guts – so as to be “moved as to the bowels of compassion” in our dealings and our relatinships with one another … in order to experience similar miracles in our own lives … as we come to God, seeking God, and in our worship of God.
This Eucharist is our messianic banquet. Saint Paul, in the pericope from Romans reminds us that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
And so, as we continue in our own act of divine worship in this Holy Mass, and as we approach this altar to receive the Sacred Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ … let us be moved to the depths of our hearts with love for God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – knowing that nothing outside of ourselves can separate us from God in Christ Jesus … and let us receive Him Sacramentally as a foretaste of the banquet of heaven … in this supreme act of worship.
