Howdy, Church fans! Here’s this week’s offering. The video of the homily can be viewed on our YouTube Channel by clicking here. The whole Mass can be seen on our Facebook page. Just click here. A summary of text is below.
We sometimes make mistakes when we first start something new. It is part of the learning process. So it was that immediately after I was ordained, I was assigned temporarily to my home parish of Our Lady of Guadalupe. That summer, this same set of readings came up. Musing on Elijah’s experience in the crossing the desert and how God provided a hearth cake and jug of water, I mused, “What is in this hearth cake? It has to have over 5000% of every vitamin and mineral known to man! After just two helpings, Elijah walks forty days and forty nights across some of the most inhospitable territory on the planet!” Then came my mistake. I asked, “If anybody has the recipe for this hearth cake, please let me know!”
The baked goods began arriving the next day. Soon they covered the kitchen table and then the countertops. The dining room table was next. There were enough carbohydrates to feed a small village for a month and then some. The crown jewel as Mrs. Rita Wichorek, a lovely woman from Bavaria, who presented me with a confection weighing at least ten pounds. As she placed it on the table she exclaimed, “Vell, fater! I don’t know vat a heart’ cake is, but vould you like a German apfelkuchen!”
I learned that day to be careful what you ask for from the pulpit, because through his people, God will provide all that you need and more than you can imagine.
This is echoed very loudly in the gospel as we continue reflecting on the Bread of Life Discourse. In the wake of feeding the multitude, Jesus reminds his listeners that just as God provided for the Hebrews, so he had provided for them in the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. It got their attention, but now he is upping the stakes. He is moving beyond bodily food to the “bread from heaven.” Those who eat this bread will never die.
I cannot help but imagine Jesus pointing to himself as he says these words. He is indeed the Bread from Heaven. He is all we need and more than we can imagine. Eventually, this will become concrete in the Upper Room when he transforms the Passover Supper into the very Eucharist we partake of in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. As such, it is appropriately referred to as “The Lord’s Supper.”
At their last meeting, the Pastoral Council recommended that we celebrate our 50th year as a parish reflecting on and celebrating the gift of the Eucharist. It truly is the source and summit of all that we are and do as a parish family. It is through the Eucharist that we receive all that we need and more than we can imagine.