It seems so long ago, but it
has only been about two months since we celebrated First Communions at St
Francis Xavier. First Communions are such an
exciting time for parishes all around the world. This is where members of our
parish family present themselves before the Lord and the Church for the first
time and call God their Father in
the midst of the assembly. And there’s usually two ways
we can spot our First Communicants Firstly, they’re dressed up
very nicely.This is mostly pretty
obvious.
But there is a second less
obvious way to spot them. When they come up through
the Communion line and as the priest or
extraordinary minister of holy communion raises the host and says the words
“The Body of Christ,” the communicants often have
not only looks of awe, but looks of great desire. They recognize that this is
indeed Jesus in their midst.
My friends, last week
Jesus’s disciples come back to Him and report about their efforts of
evangelization throughout the surrounding towns. As the crowds start to break
upon them from all over, Jesus invites them to rest with Him on a boat ride
across the sea. As Jesus and the Disciples
finally make it to the other side, they notice that the crowd has hurried on
foot to the other side.
“They were like Sheep without a Shepherd” the Gospel tells us.
So Jesus gathers them
together and they intently listen to
Him as He teaches them. But what happens after you
travel a long way and then sit for awhile? You grow hungry. Jesus tests His disciples
and asks “where are we going to buy enough food for them to eat?”
Phillip responds: “Two
hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a
little.”
But you see, it wasn’t so
much about the food. The Gospel focuses so much
on the miracle of multiplication, that we often miss the main point. The Gospel goes on “When
they had their fill…”
They were all not only
satisfied, but were filled. May I suggest that there
were actually two miracles here. The obvious: Jesus
multiplied the food. And the less obvious miracle was: they
were filled. Remember, Jesus both taught
and fed them.
Does that sound familiar?
Like what we do every time we come to Mass? They had finally found a shepherd
who could satisfy them and who could gather them
together. There was something
different about Him. And they would go on to
learn that He was much more than a shepherd - He was and is Christ in their
midst.
When we come to Mass,
do we allow Christ to fill us? Or are we distracted by
other ways to satisfy our hungers? As we hear His words in
Scripture and Gaze upon Him in the Eucharist, are we thinking about Him or are we distracted with the many things on
our to-do lists. Our First Communicants two
months ago gazed in awe and desire at the mystery of our Lord’s presence in the
form of bread and wine. The Lord is present to
hundreds of millions in this same form each and every day. What is our response to Him?
