SEVENTHEEN SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME ‘Compassionate care for the Needy: A life worthy of our vocation’ Today’s readings invite us to become humble instruments in God’s hands by sharing our blessings with our needy brothers and sisters. They focus on hunger and food and about how we can satisfy the deeper hunger of our life. They remind us that we and our country are blessed with abundant food supply and we need to share it with hungry people and poor countries. Once physical hunger is satisfied, we are challenged to satisfy the deeper hunger -for love, mercy, forgiveness, companionship, peace, and fulfillment. The first reading tells us how the prophet Elisha, by invoking God’s power, fed many people with twenty barley loaves. Elisha relied not on how much he had, but on what God would do with what the Prophet had received as a gift. This miracle foreshadows the Gospel account of Jesus’ miraculous feeding of the pursuing crowd seeking the Master. Today’s Responsorial Psalm tells us that it is “the hand of the Lord that feeds us,” and that it is God who “answers all our needs.” In the second reading, St. Paul reminds the Ephesians that Jesus united the Jews and the Gentiles by bringing them together as Christians in one Faith by means of one Baptism, enabling them to become one by eating Jesus’ Body. Hence, they have to live together, helping each other by sharing their blessings. Paul urges us to become communities of sharing Christians. In today’s Gospel, Jesus’ miraculous feeding of the five thousand people, through the apostles - using five barley loaves and two fish offered by a boy in the crowd - is associated with the Holy Eucharist early in the Church’s tradition. The people immediately interpreted the miracle, giving Jesus two Messianic titles: “The prophet” and “the onewho is to come.” This miracle teaches us that God works marvels through ordinary people. Elisha’s servant and Jesus’ disciples distributed the bread provided by God through generous people who were willing to share their food with the hungry. Thus, God meets the needs of people through the good will and services provided by members of the community. The Gospel story teaches that Jesus meets the most basic human need, namely hunger, with generosity and compassion. Today’s readings also tell us that God really cares about His people, and that He provides more than enough for everybody. Studies show that the world today produces enough food grains to provide every human being on the planet with sufficient (3,600kj) calories a day - not counting such foods as tuber crops, vegetables, beans, nuts, fruits, meats, and fish. Hence, let us pray and work for better social justice in all communities and countries. TAKEAWAY NOTES A challenge to generous sharing: As Christians we need to commit ourselves to share and to work with God in communicating His compassion to all as the early Christians did. God always blesses those who share their blessings, time, and talents with loving commitment. We can begin our own humble efforts at “sharing” right in our parish by participating in the works of charity done by parishioners or a group of individuals, etc. Once physical hunger is satisfied, then we are challenged to satisfy the deeper hunger for love, mercy, forgiveness, companionship, peace, and fulfillment. A Christian should be positive. We all know some people who seem to have an unusual level of freedom and initiative, in deciding what to do with their energy and their time. They get things done, while others would still be anxiously fretting and wondering whether to do anything! Saint Paul was a great “Doer,” a man who believed in his mission in life - to share Christ with as many people as possible. Among the apostles, he was the supreme activist, spreading the Gospel “in season and out of season.” While the conservative Jewish-Christians in Jerusalem worried about what conditions would need to be imposed before letting Greek converts into the Church, Paul was already out on his mission-field, winning those Greeks for Christ. What made Paul so sure that his way was right? He was deeply convinced that it was God’s way, that his vocation came to him directly from the living God. Each one has a personal vocation. Paul wrote this letter not just to the leaders (nor even to the whole community in Ephesus) but to every one of his converts. It is meant as an “encyclical,” a final word for all his mission parishes. And his message holds good today, for each adult Christian who is willing to listen to God’s call. The whole basis for our faith, says Paul, is that the good God has blessed us, and made us his children by grace: there is one God, the Father of us all. He is the God of mercy, who “opens wide his hand” to bless, and is “loving in all his deeds.” Once we realize this, we also understand how much is asked of us in response. We need to love others as God loves them, “with unselfishness, gentleness and patience.” This is the truly “good” life - the proper life-style for a Christian. Of course, such perfect love and unity with others is not an easy vocation, and indeed is never quite within our power to achieve. Still, it is there as a guiding ideal, calling us onward and upward. Any worthwhile vocation is like that; it calls us beyond ourselves. The importance of making a Start. All too often, our response to such high goal is to shrug and say, “Be realistic! Don’t expect much from me! I’m no hero, just an ordinary person.” Paul would not let us “cop out” of the love ideal so easily. With a nice sense of balance, he advises: “Do what you can to achieve and preserve it.” The problem often lies in getting started. What you or I can actually do, here and now, to help our neighbors, may seem woefully small. But it’s all that’s required of us just at this point in time. Elisha’s servant felt that his twenty small loaves were nowhere near enough to feed a hundred hungry men. Still, once distributed, those loaves made all the difference. Cooperating with Christ: The Christian vocation to love others - whether it comes to us as married or as single, as lay-person, religious or priest - is always part of our personal relationship with Our Lord. It is only fulfilled in co-operation with him. Each of us can be like those disciples, who took the bread that Jesus blessed, and then distributed it to the crowds. Some of us, like Philip, may feel reluctant at first to get involved in a problem that looks too big to solve. Others, like Andrew, are a bit more optimistic, and begin to notice whatever glimmerings of hope are there in the situation. But if Jesus has the willing co-operation of all his friends, something great will be done for the people in need. We just need to open our eyes, to see the needs around us. Problems to be faced, people to be loved, respected and listened to. To be involved in helping others, with our talents, our energy and our love, is the best and proper use of our freedom. And it will, please God, add up to “a life worthy of our vocation.” May the Lord bless us all and guide us all in our journey, efforts and good endeavors to share our little blessings with the needy people. May God be with us all, now and always, forevermore. Amen. In Christ, Father Akuti