The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite us to contemplate love in action that witnesses to our experience of relationship with God.
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| Love shared |
The author of the First Letter of John establishes the nature of God as Love.
* [4:7–12] Love as we share in it testifies to the nature of God and to his presence in our lives. One who loves shows that one is a child of God and knows God, for God’s very being is love; one without love is without God. The revelation of the nature of God’s love is found in the free gift of his Son to us, so that we may share life with God and be delivered from our sins. The love we have for one another must be of the same sort: authentic, merciful; this unique Christian love is our proof that we know God and can “see” the invisible God.1
In the Gospel from Mark Jesus recalls by action the shepherd of Psalm 23 as He multiplies loaves and fishes for His Jewish audience.
* [6:35–44] See note on Mt 14:13–21. Compare this section with Mk 8:1–9. The various accounts of the multiplication of loaves and fishes, two each in Mark and in Matthew and one each in Luke and in John, indicate the wide interest of the early church in their eucharistic gatherings; see, e.g., Mk 6:41; 8:6; 14:22; and recall also the sign of bread in Ex 16; Dt 8:3–16; Ps 78:24–25; 105:40; Wis 16:20–21.2
Beth Samson had always understood the Gospel reading as “The Miracle of Magic”, but she read another perspective, and it became the “The Miracle of Sharing”.
Don Schwager quotes “The Lord fills all things with blessing from above,” by Cyril of Alexandria (376-444 AD).
"So that by every means the Lord might be known to be God by nature, he multiplies what is little, and he looks up to heaven as though asking for the blessing from above. Now he does this out of the divine economy, for our sakes. For he himself is the one who fills all things, the true blessing from above and from the Father. But, so that we might learn that when we are in charge of the table and are preparing to break the loaves, we ought to bring them to God with hands upraised and bring down upon them the blessing from above, he became for us the beginning and pattern and way." (excerpt from FRAGMENT 177)3
The Word Among Us Meditation on Mark 6:34-44 tells us that Jesus’ “heart was moved with pity,” and he decided to put aside his grief and care for the people (Mark 6:34).
This says so much about the heart of Jesus. First, he wants to spend time with us. You could say that he even enjoys his time with us. He will never “dismiss” us when we go to him (Mark 6:36). Second, we can trust that Jesus will give us the gifts we need, even when we least expect it. Even when it never occurred to us to ask, he will pour out his grace and his peace. We just have to make time, like those in the crowd, to come and sit with him.
Jesus’ greatest gift to us is the Bread of Life in the Eucharist. Even better, we don’t have to travel far to receive this heavenly food. He comes to us on every altar at every Mass and feeds us. And just like the people who ate and were satisfied, we, too, can be filled to overflowing every time we share a meal with Jesus.4
Friar Jude Winkler describes Love as presented in 1 John as that which moves us to die to self for the good of the other. Verdant pastures, the gift of food and the subsequent passage of Jesus walking on the water connect the Gospel to Psalm 23. Friar Jude urges that we understand the “Nature Miracle” of the Gospel as integral to essence of Jesus then and now.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, comments that after both the Reformation and the Enlightenment, Western Europeans reduced our ways of knowing to one for all practical purposes—the supposedly rational/literal/historical. We have largely compacted and limited the Bible to this single sense for several centuries now, in both its Catholic and Protestant forms.
Unknown to many post-Reformation Christians, early centuries of Christianity—through authoritative teachers like Origen, Cyril of Alexandria, Augustine, and Gregory the Great—encouraged as many as seven “senses” of Scripture. The literal, historical, allegorical, moral, symbolic, eschatological (the trajectory of history and growth), and “primordial” or archetypal (commonly agreed-upon symbolism) levels of a text were often given serious weight among scholars. These levels were gradually picked up by the ordinary Christian through Sunday preaching (as is still true today) and presumed to be normative by those who heard them.5
The reduction of our understanding in the modern world is a theme of Disarming Beauty by Fr. Julián Carrón. It is an engaging and thought-provoking collection of essays about the most pressing questions of contemporary society.
Carrón offers a broad diagnosis of the challenges in society, and then introduces their implications in the context of families, schools, workplaces, and political communities. In a dialogue with his audience, he inspires and encourages them to lay out a new path for the Catholic Church and the world. Throughout his essays, Carrón addresses the most pressing questions today and provides insights that will interest everyone, from the most devout to the firm nonbeliever. Grappling with the interaction of Christian faith and modern culture, Carrón treats in very real and concrete ways what is essential to maintaining and developing Christian faith, and he invites an ongoing conversation about its purpose.6
The reduction of our appreciation of love and beauty to what modern rationality declares must be based on our biological senses blocks our openness to experience the beauty, mysticism and poetry of love that transcends and transforms our relationships.
References
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(n.d.). 1 John chapter 4 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved January 8, 2019, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/1john/4
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(n.d.). Mark, chapter 6 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved January 8, 2019, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/mark/6:3
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(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved January 8, 2019, from https://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/
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(n.d.). Meditations - The Word Among Us. Retrieved January 8, 2019, from https://wau.org/meditations/
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(2019, January 4). Daily Meditations Archive: January 2019 - Daily Meditations Archives .... Retrieved January 8, 2019, from https://cac.org/category/daily-meditations/2019/01/
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