Comfort Me

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today are full of reassurance. The twenty third psalm is certainly one of the Scripture passages through which many people have experienced peace and calm in meditation about the Divine Shepherd.  The best-selling author Rabbi Harold Kushnerhas written a line-by-line interpretation of this Psalm. He comments that the psalmist doesn't say, "I will fear no evil because nothing bad ever happens in the world." He says, "I will fear no evil because it doesn't scare me because God is with me." Friar Jude Winkler comments that the message from Isaiah today is that God will satisfy the deepest hunger of our hearts. This text is often chosen for Christian funeral liturgies. We are comforted by the feast of finest food and wine into which we believe the deceased is welcomed by God. Our deep hunger is for this communion with God, as Friar Jude notes, defeats death not only of our physical being but the death we choose in selfish action turning away from God. Sam Pierre ofCreighton University is stuck by the response of Jesus in the Gospel today from Matthew. When we allow ourselves to be present with Jesus in this event we can image the reassurance and affirmation that Jesus gives the lame, maimed, blind and mute, who are too often forgotten, that fullness in their life is the concern of the one who Friar Jude comments is exercising the prerogatives of God. Sam Pierre notices that the desire of Jesus to feed all is done in cooperation with the one who is able to give the seven loaves and the few fish. These texts today are food for us on many levels. Our peace and reassurance is not based on factual logical analysis, but on the expression of the Divine desire to guide and feed us. Symbolically we find more food for thought in the lavishness of the feast, the person of God as a Shepherd, the inclusion of all, particularity Gentiles, as noted by Friar Jude, in the feeding through the role of the number seven. Peaces and fullness are the fruit of the Presence of God as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23:4 KJV).