Surely we are familiar with the expression: “You are what you eat”. But what does it mean?
It is one way of saying that what food we intake mirrors what makes up our body. Our diet – what we eat reflects then not only our body but also our person. Properly it means “tell me what you eat & I will tell you what & who you are.” A vegetarian & herbivore eat plants, fruits & vegetables. A carnivore eats meat, fish & fowls. An omnivore & flexitarian eat both plants & meat.
We should however not take this literally for there is more to our person than our diet. Nevertheless, somehow our diet & food intake mirror the state & health of our whole being. It somehow also saying “You reap what you sow” i.e. good seed bears good fruits, bad seed bears bad fruit. In computer lingo, GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out).
This is what Jesus trying to convey in our gospel today when He used the image of Himself as Bread of Life. Same as food is essential to Life, Jesus is also saying to the people then & to us now that like food, Jesus is essential to our life with God.
What makes us alive & healthy then in our faith-relationship with God, our father is our recognition, acceptance & complete trust in Jesus as the Bread of Life. Our intake & communion of Jesus’ life, faith & mission mirror our very person in life & our being before God. A Christian then eats, nourishes & lives on our Lord Jesus Christ.
Be conscious that nowadays there is an unhealthy tendency to over- emphasize our sins than God’s offer of life. We hear some thinking that in attending mass, we should not take communion if have not gone to confession yet, OR it is a sin to take communion without confession.
This is unhealthy & a misnomer (wrong & inaccurate) for the Eucharist is God’s offer of life that we should never reject and undervalue over & above our sins & repentance. In other words, there is more to God’s offer Life in Jesus as the Bread of Life than just about the forgiveness of our sins.
In the Eucharist then, God is not concerned about your Sin or Our sins, but concerned of our Life with Him. And if you attend mass for the sake of your sins & not life with God, you might as well not go to mass, but go to confession instead because you are not well-disposed & not worthy of the life food being given in the Eucharist.
Remember our Lord Jesus is the Savior & the Bread of life (God’s manna/food for us). He is not the Judge to condemn & punish us of our sins. He offers us life & salvation, not judgment, condemnation & damnation.
As we try to live what we believe, practice what we preach, may we grow more mature & healthy in our faith as we receive God’s food of life in Jesus; and outgrow our shortcomings to be better & do better as faithful of Jesus Christ, our Lord.
It could happen that once in a while some wayward beggars would come to us & ask for some “bahaw” or left-over food to eat. Once I gave some food enough for a day to a beggar. As he received the food, he asked: “Walay kape ug saging man lang?” (How about some coffee & fruits for extra?). Though this irritated me, it also made me think: “If I’m going to give, why not give all – the full package deal with all the extras? Why only give enough for the day? Why not for the whole week?
But as we all know, human as we are, we are not easily contented. Hard for us to be fully satisfied. We want more. We need more than we already have. Like that wayward beggar, we want some extra: extra rice, sauce, toppings, privileges, discount, bonus, payment and others, with less effort & easily, if possible, quickly. So, when is the limited resources that I have now, enough for me? When is the less that I have, enough for me to share with others who are in need? So, when is enough is enough?Somehow at the very heart of our readings today is the question about ENOUGH.
In Exodus, we hear that after escaping slavery from Egypt, the people of Israel found themselves free from slavery but hungry in the desert. They needed food for the journey & they grumbly complained about their predicament. To the point of blaming Moses & even preferring to be slave again in Egypt but nourished, rather than free but starving in the wilderness. Yahweh heard their cries & addressed their needs.
God rained down bread from heaven for them, and they only have to gather enough bread for their daily portion. Great! But they also asked: “What’s this?”. And perhaps may also have asked: “only this, fine flakes?” It might be from heaven, but why only biscuits/flakes? Why not pizza or burger? No extra drinks? And why gather only enough for the day? Why not save & reserve for tomorrow? In the same way in our gospel today, after they were fed and have their fill at the multiplication of loaves, the people followed Jesus because they want more.
They never had enough. They need more extra from Jesus. In their mind, they would think: “Since you, Jesus have already fed us, what more can You offer us? What shall we do to have what You can give us? Do we need to work for food?
Over and beyond our human needs for survival & God’s saving act is the question of our Faith and Trust in God. The manna from heaven and the miracle of feeding thousands of people is not about the Gift, but about our faith in the Giver. What matter most then is not having enough or more than enough Food and blessings to receive, but more so about us believing & trusting in God as Giver of the Gifts & in His ways of taking care of us. It is all about having enough faith & trust in God & His work of giving us life to its fullness.
Through the manna from heaven, Yahweh gave the people enough manna provision for the day – not pizza for the whole week, because as Yahweh said, “I will test them, to see whether they follow my instructions or not”. The graces before us now then is a test in our faith with God rather than rescue operation or feeding program to satisfy our immediate & urgent needs.
In the same way, there is more to the miracle of Jesus than just the feeding of the multitude. It is a challenge for the people-then & us-now, as Jesus said: to “BELIEVE in the one God sent”. In the same way as God sent manna from Heaven, God sent us His son, Jesus not just to satisfy our cravings, our needs & hunger for more, but more so to offer us fullness & meaningful life in faith with God. Here, Jesus clearly proclaiming to us now: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”
Simply put: In life , Jesus is Enough for Us. He is all that we need in life, nothing more, nothing less. Only required of us now is to accept Him, as God-sent bread of Life, and believe His life & witness as God’s work of salvation, is enough and more than enough for us, and for all.
This is what St. Alphonsus de Liguori, the founder of the Redemptorists believes. For St. Alphonsus, “With Him, there is fullness of redemption” – With Jesus, we already got & have abundance grace & blessing always. In other words, Jesus is enough & more than enough for us. And Jesus & all His offer of graces are given for all and not only for the few.
All has a share in God’s blessing of Redemption – and this is what St. Alphonsus and we Redemptorists, & all of us Christian, believe & proclaim to all people in the world, most especially to the poor, neglected & most abandoned: Jesus, the bread of Life is Enough for us all.
When Jesus taught us to pray “Give us each day our daily bread”, he doesn’t want us just to express our needs, since the Father knows already what we need. But he wants us to express our faith in God that we believe and abide with whatever the Father gifts & wills for us.
Thus, when all is said and done, it was not the manna that sustained the Israelites in the desert, it was not the bread and fishes in the Jesus’ time, it was not our daily bread that sustains us today. What sustained them and us today is our faith and trust in God.
No matter how difficult life may be, for those who trust in God, and live a day at a time, rest assured, God’s blessing of manna from heaven falls everyday with Jesus always with us.
Lord, our bread of life, Your Love & your grace are Enough for us. Continue to nourish & give us life. Teach us to worship more the Giver than the gifts now and always. Amen.
Our gospel today is surely something familiar and already known to us all. How could we miss one of the best stories of Jesus’ miracles ever told? All four gospel evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke & John) have each own version of the story of this miracle. However one call this miracle-story – whether as “the multiplication of loaves & fishes”, or “the feeding of the multitude, these unique versions & diverse interpretations share the same plot.
Basically it is about Jesus & His disciples with crowds of people gathered & now stranded in a far-distant mountain field, perhaps already during midday. Concerned about the people, Jesus ask his disciples for resources to tend & feed these multitude of people. With the less food-resources that they can collect & muster, Jesus instructed the disciples to organize people into small groups, took & blessed the less that they got, and have it broken & shared to the groups. People began to share what they got & have to each other, that in effect, had each other & one-another fed.
And eventually made all filled & satisfied, and even able to garner twelve basketful of left-overs. Crisis-solved. Five thousand men (perhaps including or excluding women & children) were fed. A miracle happens. All are happy. Jesus saves the day.
Perhaps there is more to the story than we may realize. Somehow the story have more lessons now to teach us than it has taught us before & always. Perhaps, we can learn here something about the Power of Less.
What can Less do to All? What & how can the only Less we can have contribute for many (if not for all)? Ano at Paano ang magagawa ng kakaunti para sa karamihan at kalahatan? We may have something, but how it can help all? Like the man in our first reading, we also raised the practical question: “How can I set this (20 barley loaves & fresh grain) set up for a hundred people?” And somehow like the disciples, common sense tells us that “200 days’ wages worth of food is not enough for each of them to have a little.”
And remember during pandemic times, we pondered: “What & how can my little inconveniences (like, wearing mask, face shield, quarantine, social distancing, or vaccine) can contribute in healing our infected & life-threating world?
Somehow our condition and reality of LESS may bring us to these realizations. First, with less resources, we come to grip with our vulnerability. Suddenly, we come to experience how poor, fragile, limited, dependent & needy we are & we can be. When we get what we want & have what we need – Fast, easy, accessible, instant & convenient life gives us an illusion of power, independence & invulnerability in life. But when resources are scarce, & abilities are limited, we are humbled to realize our own poverty & neediness.
With such humility, second, we begin to be thankful & to make the best of what we already have. We become “madiskarte sa buhay”. We learn to cope & live with what less resources we have. We get to know what is enough from what is too much. We know now what is essential & important things in life as well as what we can live & do without. In other words, with less, we become resilient as well as resourceful. Third, with less, we are moved to feel with & feel for one another. As we become conscious of our own poverty & our little resources, we come to empathize & sympathize with one another, and we try to help & contribute what little we have with others.
In our gospel, Jesus did not only make a miracle of feeding the people. He also makes an example & witness of sharing the little we have with others. What meant to be a relief operation of feeding the people, now turned-out to be an agape, salu-salo, banquet because what they have received & got is also shared with others & one another. Less makes us kind & compassionate with one another. And yet still, fourth, less makes us rely on the help of others & trust in God’s mercy. In our poverty & humility, we come to realize that without God, we can do nothing. On our own we cannot live. We need God & each other to be & live in a much better & meaningful life.
LESS can be powerful. Less can be more than enough. It can humbly render us poor, bring us to resiliency & resourcefulness, make us kind & compassionate to share with other, and above all, impels us rely & trust in God and one another. Though not much, LESS can make a BIG DIFFERENCE in life.
Perhaps some of us are familiar with the 2007 comedy movie entitled: “Evan Almighty”. It is about a TV-anchorman turned politician Evan Baxter, not unlike Noah, inspired by God, built a big ARK to fulfill his promise campaign to change the world. The story-line evolved around how spectacular & comedic it is to literally build an ark in these modern times in order to change & save our world. Perhaps a primitive & crazy solution for our complicated world.
At the end, Evan’s ARK may have saved his city (animals & people) from landslide & flooding. But he realized that what God meant for Evan to build an Ark is not literally a big physical structure of an ark, but as an acronym A.R.K., which means Acts of Random Kindness.
ARK can change the world. Our little Acts of Random Kindness can make a Big difference. Less can change our world for the better. With LESS, God can be & we can be.
Take, Lord, the little resources we have. Bless & share these to others, as we are also needy of their help & of our Father’s mercy. Let these be our small contribution & acts of random kindness that we may have a share of our agape in God’s kingdom now & always.
There was once a school catechist who plans to teach the students about Jesus. So, she started like this, “Kids, I like to introduce you to someone you should know. He is a person who loves you most. Until now, he takes care of you sincerely. He is always present whenever you need him. He is the most kind and very good person whom you should know.” She have not finished yet piece yet, when a little girl raised her hands and said, “Mam, we already know him. He is Manong Joe, our neighbor the carpool driver. He is very good to us because he helps a lot of people. He even brings us to school everyday”.
The catechist was speechless for the students know already Jesus through the faith and life of their simple neighbor and carpool driver who tries his best to witness and live out his Christian faith.
Our readings today describes us the simple life of a prophet and missionary. Here in our first reading, Amos, who was just a mere shepherd became a prophet and was given a mission by God to preach His words to the Israelites. And in our gospel today, Jesus commissioned and sent out His disciples, who most of them were just mere fishermen, to preach the Good News to all people, to drive out demons and heal the sick.
This would mean that for Him to make known to us His salvation, God chooses and sends ordinary simple people to become His prophets and missionaries of His salvation. Through the simple faith and lives of these ordinary people, God continues to make known to us His salvation and we also come to know Jesus Christ.
Until now, Jesus continues His Mission of preaching the Good News of Salvation through us Christians, His disciples and believers. He intends that all of us Christians, not only priests or religious, but all of us baptized Christians become prophets and missionaries of God’s salvation. As children of God, we are also called, chosen and sent to be preachers and sharers of His salvation to others. By our baptism, every Christian, then is a missionary, a prophet of God’s salvation. We are also called to announce and preach Jesus Christ to others through our simple and humble witnessing of our Christian faith to our brothers and sisters.
This reminds me of a story about a family who went for an excursion. Because they were such in a hurry to catch the bus in the terminal, they bumped into a beggar along the way. Having taken their seats, the boy then noticed the beggar on her knees picking up the spilled-off alms. He said, “I have to help the beggar”. But his mom opposed, “Don’t mind her. You might miss the trip. Besides, she should not be there at all.” But out of sympathy, the boy went down and helped the beggar. It was then he realized that she was a blind beggar, and so he apologized what had happened. On his way back to the bus, the blind beggar called out for him and said, “Thank you very much, boy. But may I know, are you Jesus?”
Today, there are still a lot of our brothers and sisters who are still not familiar with & longing to meet Jesus. Like the blind beggar asking the question ‘are you Jesus?’, there are still people who have not and cannot recognize Jesus in our midst today. They long to know, to feel and to experience Jesus personally.
And only through our Christian faith, through our discipleship and witnessing our faith in Jesus Christ to them, by our person, they will come to recognize and know Jesus in their own lives. Through us, His prophets and missionaries, Jesus continues to reveal the Salvation our Father has bestowed on us and on our brothers and sisters.
We pray that like Manong Joe & that boy, in our simplicity we may grow in our faith in Jesus, for us to be worthy of being missionaries and prophets of God’s salvation to our brothers and sisters here & now always.
So Be It. Amen
With our simple faith in Jesus, let us now renew our faith, as we profess… I believe…
The gospel we have just heard and proclaimed to us is the Good News of our Salvation. However, there is something disturbing about our gospel today that may make us wonder and even suspect whether it is really Good News.
Because as it is narrated to us, our gospel today basically tells us how Jesus was rejected in his own country. Yes, here we heard how Jesus was despised in his own country and by his own people. It describes to us that while he continued His Mission to preach the Good News for all & everybody, and as he preached the Good News particularly in own hometown, Jesus experienced humiliation.
He suffered persecutions and rejection in his own country and by his own people “sano” that, in effect, made it difficult for him to continue his work of salvation. Because of this experience, Jesus said: “Prophets are not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house”. Good news has been preached and shared, miracles has been revealed and accomplished already, but were all rejected and wasted by his very Own people. Good new as it may be, our gospel today is certainly disturbing as well.
Now, is it true that a prophet is not without honor except in his own home? Is a prophet honorable except in his own house and his own family? Experience tells us there is truth in this. Based not only on the experience of Jesus, but also on our experience, to share the Good News of Christ to our own household or community is a difficult assignment and mission.
Tough and challenging indeed, to bring God’s message and do wonders and miracles in our own home. Why? Why is it hard to be a prophet in our own home? What makes it challenging to proclaim Christ and share the Good news within our own family where sometimes (or even always) parents complaining about their children, children blaming their parents, brother and sisters accusing each other? Or even within our community or church where we do tend to complain with & about one another?
Somehow, we could identify in our gospel today two stumbling blocks that make it hard to be a prophet in our own home. First, our prejudices. Like the people who saw Jesus as only the carpenter’s son, it is also our tendency to prejudge others, as if we already know them, that make us blind to recognize prophets in our midst. We tend to downgrade, belittle others, and measure or to limit others by our own standard. “Ka-menos ba.”
Comments like: He is only that, or he is just a ..” And because we judged, we boxed in, that person by our own standards, we want them to behave as we expect them to behave, no more no less. Comments like, “you are just my junior, don’t disobey (“Anak, lang tika, ayaw’g supak” or “Magulang baya ko ha.”)
At the same time, we tend not only to belittle others but also we undervalue ourselves. “Unsaon ta man, pobre man, manghod lang man, dili man ko pari, wa man ko kaeswela. Ordinaryo man lang ko, dili man ko dato.” (What can I do, I’m just ordinary, poor, undereducated person.) There is much truth then to the saying: “over familiarity breeds contempt”.
The second stumbling block to our being a prophet in our own turf is our lack of faith. In our gospel today, Jesus was not able to work miracles in his own country because of the people’s unbelief – their lack of faith. Usually it is slow for us to believe. If I may ask you: How many of you believe that you, yourself are called and sent to be today’s Christian prophet? Those who believe that you are a Christian prophet, please raise your hands.
You might think “Me a prophet, no way. Maybe him, but not me”, or Father must be crazy, I am just a simple ordinary unworthy Catholic Christian. How can I be a prophet I cannot even confront my problematic son? How can I preach Good News to my irresponsible drunkard uncle? Or how many of you here believe that your son or daughter or your helper is also a prophet? You might think, how my son or daughter could be a prophet – they cannot even make their own room. My helper a prophet? she cannot even read her own letters. Yes, we tend to be slow to accept that we are God’s sons and daughters.
It is hard for us to believe that by virtue of our baptism – our baptismal consecration, every Catholic Christians share the dignity, identity, and responsibility, gifted to be Christ’s Prophets today.
Remember, every Christian is baptized to be a prophet. Yes, tough & hard it is to be today’s prophet in our own home and community because of humiliations, persecutions, neglect and rejections that we may encounter caused by our prejudices and our lack of faith in Christ, others and in ourselves.
Like the sano/townfolks of Jesus, we may have rejected and wasted the message and the miracles-offered because of our prejudices and lack of faith in the messenger.
To proclaim the Good News is indeed threatening. But beyond and regardless of these difficulties and stumbling blocks, the message of salvation is remained humbly preached, shared, and fulfilled through the witnessing of ordinary people like us. As St. Paul would say as well: “I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and constraints for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
And the good news is, despite these difficulties and hardships, God continues to send prophets who will preach his salvation to others whatever it takes. And usually he calls and sends those who are weak, ordinary, young, mayokmok in our standards. And mayokmok we maybe, He sends us to be His prophets of Good News to our world today.
Reluctant & hesitant prophets we may be in our own home, we still do our part in believing & proclaiming our faith that there is God’s prophet amongst us, for the Lord said: “Whether they heed or resist, they shall know that a prophet has been among them.
Even we are slow to believe and as limited we may be, let us now renew and proclaim our faith…as we say….
A DOSE OF GOD TODAY 