A Homily for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

+ Miracles happen. As much as twentieth-century scripture scholars tried to demythologise them, and rationalists, in their frenzied cult of the god of empirical science, insist that a priori they are simply not possible, miracles nevertheless happen. And they happen because God is. They happen because the supernatural is real, and because at times the supernatural discards the limits of what we call “natural” and allows us to experience reality—true reality, that is: the reality of God Himself.

The miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and of the fish of today’s Gospel is something of a milder example. No one is cured or raised from the dead, etc. Our Lord, out of paternal compassion, feeds the hungry crowds. In all likelihood many may not have even known that a miracle had been worked: the crowds may have assumed that there was some pre-planned store of food. But those closest to Our Lord, the disciples knew—and clearly it made a deep impression on them, for this miracle is recounted by all four Evangelists. (The Church contemplates St John’s account on the fourth Sunday of Lent each year.)

If we contemplate this miracle a little more deeply, we can begin to appreciate how important it in fact is. We could ponder the sheer goodness of our Lord’s compassion on the crowds. His concern was to provide for their immediate needs even when, one could rightly enough assert, they perhaps should have taken care of themselves. This generosity of spirit, this mobile hospitality as it were, are indeed well worth pondering, and the Church has done so throughout the ages through her charitable and hospitable works and Orders, with monasteries to the fore, throughout the centuries before secular states even existed, let alone seized control of social care.

Regardless, such compassion and hospitality is a necessary hallmark of the disciples of Christ, today as ever. And, even if our resources are utterly limited, the Gospel teaches us that in offering what little we have available, with God’s blessing, true miracles can and do happen. For God is. And since the Incarnation of God as man in Jesus the Christ, nature has been mingled with supernature. The supernatural is not out of our reach: it has come to meet us and to save us—to feed us lest we faint along the way.

So too, in contemplating the miracle of today’s Holy Gospel we cannot ignore the profound Eucharistic undertones that are present, particularly in the taking, blessing, breaking and distributing of the bread—actions which, in the context of His Passion, will be elevated from the simple feeding of a hungry crowd into the making available of the Bread of Life, of His very self, offered on the Cross in sacrifice for our sins, of food that will nourish for eternity.

Here we encounter the ultimate compassion of Almighty God for His people—one that sacrifices the very last drop of the Blood of His very own Son so that His children will not perish for eternity but shall receive that forgiveness that their sins require and come to enjoy life with Him that shall never end! And whilst this miracle of the forgiveness of sins is less tangible than either the miracle of the loaves and of the fish, or even than that of the Blessed Eucharist, it is no less real—and certainly no less important. For without the forgiveness of our sins we are lost, in this life and for eternity.

At matins this morning the Church mediated on the infidelity of King David, on his adulterous murder of Uriah
and of the confrontation of King David by the prophet Nathan, leading to the King’s repentance and forgiveness. (2 Kings 12:1-16) Adulterous murder is not nothing. And if one appreciates that the King was the elect and anointed of God, it was also utterly sacrilegious—an abuse of the King’s God-given office for base carnal ends. And yet, even in this situation, God sent His Prophet, Nathan, to call the lost King to repentance—a reality which we contemplate each day as we sing Psalm 50 (the Miserere) at Lauds.

For the Lord does not want us to perish along the way. He wishes to give us the nourishment and the healing that we need through the miracles he works daily in the confessional and at the altar. Our sins can be forgiven! We can receive the strength and nourishment we require to persevere, even when at a purely natural level all hope or possibility seems to be lost. All we have to do is to offer what little we have in faith and in trust, however insufficient it may seem to be. If we have at least some repentance and a modicum of faith, that is enough.

For miracles do happen. The supernatural is real. God is. And we are invited to partake in supernatural life now, even as the world, the flesh and the devil encumber us. We are promised that, if we repent, if persevere in faith, we shall be among those who partake in the unending reality of the life of God Himself. As we assist now at the miracle of Calvary made present anew on this altar, let us ask Him for sufficient faith so to do, confident in his paternal compassion for our weakness. +