The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today challenge us to pursue truth, beauty and service as we are prompted by the Holy Spirit.
The reading from the Prophet Jeremiah describes the Two Yokes and how Hananiah opposes Jeremiah and dies.
And Jeremiah the prophet said to Hananiah the prophet: Listen to this, Hananiah! The LORD has not sent you, and you have led this people to rely on deception.
Psalm 119 praises the glories of God’s Law.
* [Psalm 119] This Psalm, the longest by far in the Psalter, praises God for giving such splendid laws and instruction for people to live by. The author glorifies and thanks God for the Torah, prays for protection from sinners enraged by others’ fidelity to the law, laments the cost of obedience, delights in the law’s consolations, begs for wisdom to understand the precepts, and asks for the rewards of keeping them. Several expected elements do not appear in the Psalm: Mount Sinai with its story of God’s revelation and gift to Israel of instruction and commandments, the Temple and other institutions related to revelation and laws (frequent in other Psalms). The Psalm is fascinated with God’s word directing and guiding human life.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus feeds the Five Thousand.
* [14:13–21] The feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle of Jesus that is recounted in all four gospels. The principal reason for that may be that it was seen as anticipating the Eucharist and the final banquet in the kingdom (Mt 8:11; 26:29), but it looks not only forward but backward, to the feeding of Israel with manna in the desert at the time of the Exodus (Ex 16), a miracle that in some contemporary Jewish expectation would be repeated in the messianic age (2 Bar 29:8). It may also be meant to recall Elisha’s feeding a hundred men with small provisions (2 Kgs 4:42–44).
Nicky Santos, S.J. attention was drawn to Jesus being moved with compassion or pity for the crowd. The image of God who suffers with us, who is moved with compassion or pity, is a powerful one.
The Word Among Us Meditation on Matthew 14:13-21 comments that Jesus speaks these same words to all of us: Give them some food yourselves (Matthew 14:16). He sees the hunger in each heart—a hunger for food, for love, and for him. And he calls us to feed his people, both materially and spiritually.
Friar Jude Winkler shares his comments on the texts today.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, describes deeper stages of spiritual maturity as a “regained innocence”.
We are prompted by the Spirit to pursue truth and to act with faith to serve the needs of those who are revealed to us in that truth.
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