Offered and Offering

 Fourth Sunday in Lent

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  In the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves in Tabgha in the Holy Land, which was itself founded around AD 350, there is an ancient mosaic dating from around the year 480 in front of the altar where there are two fish and four loaves.  Now, if you were listening carefully to the Gospel, you would know that the multiplication of the loaves and fish involved “five barley loaves.”  So what’s with this ancient mosaic?  Did they simply run out of space?  Was the ancient artist ignorant of the account?  
    In reality, the ancient artist not only knew his Bible, but also knew his theology.  There are four loaves in the mosaic because the fifth loaf is the one on the altar, being consecrated into the Body of Christ.  St. John the Evangelist had this connection between the multiplication of the loaves and the Eucharist as the rest of John chapter 6 goes on to contain the preaching of our Lord about how He is the Bread of Life, and that we need to eat His flesh and drink His blood in order to have life.  
    The Eucharist is the new covenant that our Lord established between Him and us so that we could have salvation and be in right relationship with God.  This is made clear in the words of institution over the chalice: “Take this, all of you, and drink from it.  For this is the chalice of my Blood, the Blood of the New and Eternal Covenant: the mystery of faith: which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.”  God promises to be our God, and we promise to be His People, in this Sacrament of Sacraments, which itself points to Good Friday, as Christ shed His Blood on the Cross.
    St. Paul takes up this idea of covenants in the epistle as he sees an allegorical interpretation of Genesis and the stories of Isaac and Ishmael.  Ishmael, as the son of the slave Hagar, represents the old covenant, the Law, while Isaac, the son of the free-woman, Sarah, is the new covenant of the Lord.  
    Does St. Paul mean that God has abandoned the Jews and the covenant He made with them?  No.  The Apostle, after spending chapters explaining how the law does not save, writes in his Epistle to the Romans: “I ask then, has God rejected his people?  Of course not!  […] For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.”  Even though the law does not save, God does not reject His People, His Chosen Ones.  
    But God has fulfilled what the Old Covenant was meant to prepare for: salvation through Christ.   And that salvation is made present for us in the Eucharist each time we come to Mass.  Christ offered Himself once for all on the cross, but wanted us to have access to the power of the sacrifice, just as the Jews had opportunity to connect themselves to their sacrificial offerings that were made in the Temple.  When a Jew would offer sacrifice, certain parts of the animal offerings were for God, to be burned up on the altar, while others were reserved for the priest, and still others were given back to the people.  So when Christ offered Himself in sacrifice to the Father, the priest (that is I) receives a portion from the bread and wine you have offered, and you also receive a portion of your sacrifice that God gives back to you.  But unlike the old covenant where the sacrifice remains the same, the bread and wine that we offer to God through my hands is transformed by God into the Body and Blood of Christ so that you and I receive better than what we offered.  
    But it is not simply bread and wine that we offer to God.  The boy gave five loaves and two fish to Christ in the Gospel, which was all that he had.  We, too, are called to offer all that we have to God in this Mass, and unite it to the bread on the corporal and the wine in the chalice.  Sacrosanctum concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council teaches, “But in order that the liturgy may be able to produce its full effects, it is necessary that the faithful come to it with proper dispositions, that their minds should be attuned to their voices, and that they should cooperate with divine grace lest they receive it in vain.”  Lumen gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of the Second Vatican Council expands on this idea of the laity’s participation in Mass when it states:
 

[Christ] also gives them a sharing in His priestly function of offering spiritual worship for the glory of God and the salvation of men.  […] For all their works, prayers and apostolic endeavors, their ordinary married and family life, their daily occupations, their physical and mental relaxation, if carried out in the Spirit, and even the hardships of life, if patiently borne–all these become “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Christ Christ”.  Together with the offering of the Lord’s body, they are most fittingly offered in the celebration of the Eucharist.

Even in this pre-conciliar form for the celebration of the Mass, you are called to bring to the Apostles, and their assistants, the presbyters (i.e., me) what you have so that it maybe offered to God for the salvation of you and of all.  Any reading of the best minds of the Liturgical Movement before the Council also bears witness to this.  
    So what are you bringing to this Mass?  What are you offering with me, in addition to the bread and the wine?  As I am saying the Canon silently, are you offering to God what has happened since the last time you came to Mass?  Are you giving God the joys your family brings you, and/or the frustrations you experience when they push your buttons?  Are you offering the “atta-boy” or “atta-girl” that your boss gave you for accomplishing a task excellently, and/or the lack of drive and fulfillment in the job which pays the bills but does not utilize your gifts and talents?  Are you praying silently to God thanking Him for the game that you won, and/or giving him your broken heart that was torn when your young love dumped you?  
    These parts of life, and many more that I did not mention, are all part of the sacrifice that God desires.  These ups and downs are meant to be spiritually united to the oblation that I offer, which is itself united to the one, acceptable, perfect offering of Christ on the Cross, re-presented for us in an unbloody way on this altar.  As we continue our pilgrimage this Lent, as we walk with our Lord toward Good Friday, may the joys and sorrows of our life be fitting gifts to God, so that may not only share in the Death, but also the Resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.  Amen. 

300 Acres of Pizza

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

            Probably a Chipotle barbacoa burrito and a root beer with two slices of lemon.  Or maybe a well-marbled porterhouse steak with a nice glass of red wine (you don’t have to card me, I am of age).  Those are probably my favorite meals.  On a very joyous day in the life of the church, like a holyday or the day of a patron saint, that would be a good meal.

            Every person has his or her own favorite meal.  Maybe it’s a meal cooked by mom.  Maybe it’s fast food.  Maybe it’s whatever is left over in the fridge.  Sometimes it’s just one food.  Maybe it’s more like a top ten…or twenty.  Lots of people like pizza.  According to one website, Americans consumed 3 billion pizzas last year.  That’s billion with a b.  That’s 300 acres, or 57 square miles of pizza.  That’s a lot of eating. 

            There was a lot of eating today in the Gospel passage we heard.  The people ate until they were satisfied, and there were 5,000 men, “not counting women and children.”  They didn’t have pizza.  They didn’t have steak.  They certainly didn’t have a barbacoa burrito.  Loaves and fish were on the menu that day, and that’s what the people ate.  That’s what Jesus fed them.

            Now some people will say that the miracle that happened there is that Jesus got all the people to share with each other, because they felt bad that they had something hidden in their tunics, and all the disciples had were five loaves and two fish.  And certainly, especially in some families, or with college students, sharing is a minor miracle.  But that eisegesis, that reading our modern presuppositions into the Scripture, does not gel with the point that St. Matthew is trying to get across: Jesus fed the people.  Jesus’ concern for them led Him to supply their needs.  We heard in the psalm response: “The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs.”  These people were fed by the hand of the Lord.  God the Father took care of His children. 

            Have you ever seen a child try to cook dinner for itself?  It’s a mess!!  The measurements are never right, they can’t use the oven or the stove, and there are spices and liquids all over the place.  I once tried to make zucchini bread for my mom when she was gone and I was being watched by a baby sitter.  Don’t ask me why, but my baby sitter let me.  I thought that all we needed was shredded zucchini, flour, eggs, and milk.  So I mixed them together in a bread pan and stuck it in the oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes with my baby sitter’s help (don’t worry, I have come a long way since then in cooking).  When it came out, I stuck a toothpick in it, because that’s what you do when you’re done cooking bread.  I had no idea what it was supposed to do, but I had seen my mother do it countless times, so I did it, too.  And then I cut a piece for myself.  It was gooey on the inside, and it tasted nothing like my mother’s zucchini bread.  None of you are probably surprised.

            When we try to feed ourselves, by ourselves, we ruin it, and we end up hungry.  When we are convinced we have everything under control and we know how to do it best by ourselves (like a child), very little turns out right.  We don’t know how to get the good stuff, and we tend to choose the bad stuff given the choice.  The child in the checkout lane never chooses something healthy.  He or she almost always goes for the candy.  We cannot feed ourselves. 

            But Jesus does not leave us to our own devices to starve.  He loves us too much to do that.  His heart is moved with pity for us, because we cannot provide what we need for ourselves.  Oh sure, we can provide work for ourselves (though even those talents that get us a job come from God), and we can make a living, and provide food and drink and a house and healthcare: the basic necessities of life, if we’re diligent, hardworking, and lucky.  But when we die, and we all will, what then?  We don’t know how to bake salvation.  We’ve tried.  It’s ended badly. 

            Jesus offers us salvation.  He feeds us with the finest wheat.  We do not feed ourselves.  When we try, we’re like the Israelites in the desert who tried to get more manna than we needed, only to see it rot.  We’re like the people from the first reading who spend our money on what is not bread and our wages for what fails to satisfy.  If you want to eat, says the Lord through the Prophet Isaiah, come to me.  You will be satisfied.

           

In Israel, in the city of Tabgha, there is a church called the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish.  And in the floor in front of  the main altar, there is a famous mosaic.  The mosaic is a picture of a basket with two fish and four loaves.  No, they didn’t count incorrectly.  The fifth loaf is on the altar.  We take what we can do: provide the basics.  We give God the bread.  That bread is made up of many grains of wheat crushed and ground to a fine flour.  That’s our life.  We’re not meant only to give God the hosts.  We’re supposed to unite our lives—the parts that are joyful and the parts of us that have been crushed—with the bread.  And in offering that little bit to God, we receive back what we could have never created on our own: the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.  God is so good to us.  He doesn’t let us starve.  He satisfies us with the bread from heaven.  Mere men (both men and women) eat the bread of angels, the panis angelicus.  “The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs.”