Saturday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time Yr 1 2025
Ordinary Time • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 6 viewsThe first reading, Gen ch 3, is about shame, division, and scapegoating - exile from Eden is mercy so they do not live forever in the downward spiraling world. Our gospel shows Jesus drawing a crowd, having mercy, including his disciples in his action, and relieving their anxiety as it turns into joy. That is our calling, to resist the diabolos and his division by gathering around Jesus, hanging onto his word as disciples, trusting him in our anxiety, doing what he tells us. And we will be satisfied, ultimately when Jesus is the broken bread of the Eucharist.
Notes
Transcript
Title
Title
Give them something to eat
Outline
Outline
Our first reading is the state of humanity
Our first reading is the state of humanity
Shamed at their nakedness, divided and hiding separately from each other and God, and scapegoating the other in their anxiety and doing so to the diabolos too, who is the one who got what he planned. Finally, they are exiled from Eden out of mercy, for is they ate from the sacramental tree they would live forever, but living a forever of pain and alienation and suffering related to their very purpose (ruling nature and multiplying), an eternal living hell. Threescore and ten years are enough.
But this is what the world around us is like. Just watch as the USA around us moves into its death spiral driven by the worship of Mammon and Mars.
Then comes Jesus
Then comes Jesus
He has attracted a crowd; no one is hiding for all are focused on him. He shows them what love is: they are not even asking and yet he compassionately meets their needs. He draws his disciples into closer fellowship to meet the need, raising their anxiety only to turn it into joy as he shows dependence on and obedience to him is all that is needed. And they leave with 7 baskets of fragments, more than enough for their needs for quite a while.
There we see our calling
There we see our calling
The diabolos is seeking to divide the Church (and doing a decent job) and, if possible, this Order and even this Priory, first by getting us separated from Jesus, and then, from one another. I say the Church for his first desire is to bring it down. He knows that Rome fell on its own even with a united Church trying to mitigate the effects of the fall.
Our calling is to gather close to Jesus, trust him for our needs, know that his mercy is great. We are to be more than crowds, but disciples, hanging on his every word - thus Eucharistic adoration - and depending on his mercy not our ideas - thus the Chaplet of Divine Mercy for my part. That will keep us united around the right center, forming a shield wall against the diabolos. And then the solution to our needs is obvious: trust him, answer his questions honestly, for he wants to draw us in, and do whatever he tells you. Then we will eat and be satisfied too as the disciples would be to a greater degree later when they experienced Jesus himself as the broken bread.
