The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite us to contemplate our experience of care in our relationship with God.
Verdant pasture
The reading from the Prophet Isaiah offers praise for God’s Deliverance and the Celebration in Zion as He will swallow up death forever.
* [25:1–9] These verses praise God for carrying out his plan to destroy the enemy and to save the poor of his people in Zion (14:32), and they announce the victory banquet to be celebrated in the Lord’s city.1
Psalm 23 proclaims the support we receive from the Divine Shepherd.
* [Psalm 23] God’s loving care for the psalmist is portrayed under the figures of a shepherd for the flock (Ps 23:1–4) and a host’s generosity toward a guest (Ps 23:5–6). The imagery of both sections is drawn from traditions of the exodus (Is 40:11; 49:10; Jer 31:10).2
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus cures many people and feeds the Four Thousand.
* [15:32–39] Most probably this story is a doublet of that of the feeding of the five thousand (Mt 14:13–21). It differs from it notably only in that Jesus takes the initiative, not the disciples (Mt 15:32), and in the numbers: the crowd has been with Jesus three days (Mt 15:32), seven loaves are multiplied (Mt 15:36), seven baskets of fragments remain after the feeding (Mt 15:37), and four thousand men are fed (Mt 15:38).3
Molly Mattingly comments that many of us are coming from a week centered around the American Thanksgiving feast. We have been filled with rich food and choice wines. Many have enjoyed gathering with loved ones around the table after a year or more apart. Many have voiced things for which they have been grateful in the past year. Now, imagine that God wants to give us an even better banquet than that, to spread a table before us as God’s anointed ones for eternity!
Isaiah offers a vision of that heavenly banquet, when the veils that separate us from each other and from God will be gone, death destroyed, tears wiped away, and everyone brought together in joy. Jesus offers that generosity to all those following him in the Gospel. He has spent three days healing them and is concerned that they may collapse on the way home without food. Jesus’ compassion for those he loves moves him to even more generosity to sustain them. His closest disciples offer what they have, and when Jesus has given thanks for their offering, it is enough to fill everyone there. What a Eucharistic banquet to sustain us through this season of preparation! “Bread for the World” by Bernadette Farrell4
Don Schwager quotes “The joy of the hope rooted in Christ,” by Cyril of Alexandria (376-444 AD).
"Having said that the Lord will reign in Zion and Jerusalem, Isaiah leads us to the mystical meaning of the passage (Isaiah 25:6-10). Thus Zion is interpreted as a high place that is good for surveillance, and Jerusalem is the vision of the world. In fact, the church of Christ combines both: it is high and visible from everywhere, and is, so to speak, located on the mountain. The church may be understood as high also in another way: there is nothing low in it, it is far removed from all the mundane things, as it is written, 'I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!' (Psalm 47:7-8). Equally elevated are its orthodox and divine doctrines; thus the doctrine about God or about the holy and consubstantial Trinity is true, pure and without guile. "'The Lord of hosts will make for all people,' not just for the Israelites elected for the sake of their patriarchs but for all the people of the world. What will he make? 'A feast of wines on the lees; they will drink joy, they will drink wine. They will be anointed with myrrh on the mountain.' This joy, of course, means the joy of hope, of the hope rooted in Christ, because we will reign with him, and with him we will enjoy every spiritual joy and pleasure that surpasses mind and understanding. By 'wine' he points to the mystical sacrament, that of the bloodless sacrifice, which we celebrate in the holy churches." (excerpt from COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 25:6-7)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Isaiah 25:6-10 comments on how Jesus fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah that God will live among his people forever. There, he will destroy the veil over all people. There, he will overcome death itself and provide a rich feast for his people.
He will destroy the veil (Isaiah 25:7). On Mount Tabor, Jesus was transfigured before his three closest disciples. The veil that separated us from knowing and hearing God was lifted briefly (Matthew 17:1-8)... He will destroy death forever (Isaiah 25:8). On the mount of Calvary, death was defeated. As you look on Jesus in the manger this Advent, think of what he accomplished in his cross and resurrection… The Lord . . . will provide . . . a feast (Isaiah 25:6)... today you can feast on the close relationship with God that Jesus offers you. Not only that, but you can also feast on his own Body and Blood in the Eucharist. You feast because God provides all of this for you in Jesus. So rejoice today and shout for joy, “God . . . ; let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us!” (Isaiah 25:9). “Jesus, thank you for removing the veil and defeating death. I rejoice in your salvation!”6
Friar Jude Winkler examines the change in theology in the Book of Isaiah moving toward a universalism showing God for all people. The perfect number, 7, is significant in the feeding of the four thousand. Friar Jude reminds us that Christ provides enough “food” for the whole world.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, comments that virtually all Christians are taught to call God “Father,” as Jesus did himself. He invites us all to reclaim and honor female wisdom, which is often qualitatively different from male wisdom. Although Jesus was clearly of the masculine gender, the Universal Christ is beyond gender, and so it should be expected that the Big Tradition would have found feminine ways, consciously or unconsciously, to symbolize the full Divine Incarnation and to give God a more feminine character—as the Bible itself often does. [1] Fr Richard’s New Mexico friend and mystic Mirabai Starr offers images of God as female and feminine, which is affirming and healing for many people.
Your God transcends form. And yet She also dwells within every created thing. She animates all that is growing and going to seed, all that is ripened and fragrant, all that is raw and undomesticated. She dwells in creativity, in beauty, in chaos. She breathes with the laboring female animals, breathes with the newborn’s first inhalation, breathes with the old ones as they exhale one last time. She is the passion of lovers, the dignity of the queen. She is merciful, but She is not the least bit sentimental. You do not mean to break the rules and call Her God. You try not to even conceive of God that way. But sometimes you can’t help it. Everything that feels holy feels like Her.7
As we experience the support of nourishment and verdant pastures in our journey with Christ, we respond with gratitude.
References
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