17B18. 2 Kings 4:42-44. “Elisha insisted, ‘Give it to the people to eat.’ For thus says the Lord, ‘They shall eat and there shall be some left over.’” The Lord provides abundantly. Spiritually, if we try to live on our own efforts with little or no support from God, we will starve to death.

John 6:1-15. “Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee. A large crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick.” He feeds them all, five thousand men plus at least as many women and children, from five barley loaves and two fish. “When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, ‘Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.’ So they collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragment from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat.” The power of God is infinite and he is always ready and willing to use it out of love for use. However he wants nothing to be wasted, never using his power uselessly as just a way of flexing his divine muscles. He wants to see results or fruit that will benefit us eternally. The people wanted to make him an earthly king but he wanted them to get to heaven where he would be their eternal king. He had given them the bread of this world so that they would put their faith in him so to seek the spiritual life on earth that would give them a life in heaven. He filled their stomachs for a day so to fill their souls for all eternity.

Ephesians 4:1-6. If the bread of our spiritual life is God, then we are bound to one another in the one God who is the same source of spiritual life, common to all who find life from Him. He gives us the love to bear with one another, since we all find that love in the “one God and Father of all.” We are made one united by all going to the same table to feed our spiritual lives, Jesus, who keeps us in communion with him by sharing his divine life with us. In Romans 12:4-5 Paul wrote: “For as in one body we have many parts, and all the parts do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually parts of one another.” In Ephesians 4:15-16 Paul writes: “Rather, living the truth in love, we should grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, with the proper functioning of each part, brings about the body’s growth and builds itself up in love.” In Colossians 1:17 Paul wrote: “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” We receive him Body and Blood so to have him as the source of the body’s life, the unity that is the Church, over which he is the head.

16B18. Jeremiah 23:1-6. Jeremiah prophesies that God will appoint shepherds who will lead God’s People in God’s ways and not mislead them as past shepherds had. Jeremiah goes on to write, “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up a righteous shoot to David, as king he shall reign and govern wisely; and on to: “In his days Judah shall be saved, Israel shall dwell in security.” It seems to me that Jeremiah is thinking of an earthly king; whereas, we as Christians apply this to Jesus, the spiritual king, who will shepherd his people wisely.

Mark 6:30-34. This gospel reading picks up from last Sunday’s reading after Jesus had sent the Twelve Apostles out to be the new shepherds of Israel, preaching repentance and validating and reinforcing their mission by curing the sick and driving out demons. After that very demanding work, he says, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” Jesus felt that they needed to retreat from the intense busyness of this world to nourish themselves interiorly with prayer. However, the people were in such great need for what Jesus had to offer they hastened to that deserted place on foot. “When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.” He is the One to save them from being lost spiritually, and likewise us too.

Ephesians 2:13-18. “In Christ Jesus you who once were far off have become near by the blood of Christ.” The Gentiles have been brought near to their salvation by the redemption he has given them by offering himself as a sacrifice on the cross. Paul also wrote in Colossians 1:20, “and through him to reconcile all things for him, making peace by the blood of his cross [through him], whether those on earth or those in heaven.” Jesus made Jew and Gentile one “through his flesh, abolishing the law” “that he might create in himself one new person in place of the two, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile both with God, in one body, through the cross, putting that enmity to death by it.” “Through him we both have access to one Spirit to the Father.” Paul wrote in Colossians 3:11, “Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision or uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all and in all.” Jesus shepherds his flock together to the gates of heaven.

Psalm 23:1-3, 3-4, 5, 6. “The Lord is my shepherd.” “He guides me in right paths for his name’s sake,” for he is true to who he is, the God of righteousness. “I fear no evil; for you are at my side.” God is a fatherly, all powerful God who uses his strength to care for me. “You spread the table before me;” “my cup overflows.” God provides generously for all our needs. “In verdant pastures he gives me repose; besides restful waters he leads me.” In Matthew 11:28, Jesus says, “Come to me you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” Caring for us as a mother cares for her young; he looks to see that we are refreshed to face the challenges that are to come. He neither overwhelms us with his demands nor allows us to be overwhelmed. He is the awesome God using his might to protect us, yet at the same time a God so meek and humble of heart looking after us in the smallest details.

15B18. Amos 7:12-15. Amos tells Amaziah, priest of Bethel, that he had a way to earn bread as a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores. The reason why he is a prophet was not to earn bread, but that God himself called him to be a prophet.

Mark 6:7-13. As God had sent out Amos, Jesus sends out the Twelve, representing his founding the new Israel, to preach repentance to bring the people into his new People of God. He sends them out with the spiritual authority over unclean spirits but with little material resources. Those who accept the invitation to follow Christ are to supply for the material needs of the Apostles; those, who do not, will have testimony given against them.

Ephesians 1:3-14. This text is incredibly rich. We have been blessed because God the Father has chosen us in Christ, “before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him. In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will, for the praise of the glory of his grace that he granted us in the beloved” Christ. To be the sons and daughters of the Father, God’s People, we have been called to be holy as he is holy so that we may live with him who is our Father in our new family home, heaven. To become holy as he is holy is the work of the Spirit in us through the grace that our Father has lavished on us. In accepting his redemption of us, we gain our inheritance to become “God’s possession, to the praise of his glory,” God’s holy People made new in Christ.” Life on the way to heaven is a daily experience of growing in our friendship with God by cooperating with the Spirit. Every day is a wondrous joy because more and more Christ becomes our life, helping us to live a little more of heaven even while we are here on earth.

14B18. Ezekiel 2:2-5. God sends his spokesman to his people who do not want to be God’s People but rather want to belong to themselves and not to God. God says, at least, they will know that Ezekiel is a prophet sent to them by God.

Mark 1-6a. Jesus “came to his native place.” He preached in the synagogue to the people who knew him from birth. “Many who heard him were astonished. They said, ‘Where did this man get all this?’” “’Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?’ And they took offense at him.” As Catholics we understand that using the terminology ‘brothers and sisters’ does not mean that they are the children of Mary but rather that they are the cousins of Jesus and so members of Jesus’ extended family. Also, I understand that they “took offense at him” to mean that all those who knew him from birth or for many years before his public ministry thought that they really knew this fellow Jesus and that now Jesus was falsely trying to come off as someone totally different than the person that they had known all those past years. However, he was proving himself to be someone who had come of age to be the person he was really meant to be all along. Now he was manifesting the divine call he had received by the authority he was showing in his words and miracles. They were too locked into a previous conception they had of the person of Jesus. They were being too human and nature bound and not allowing the spiritual (Holy Spirit) to change them. “So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people.” The object of the miracles of curing people was to build on their faith in him and help increase their spiritual life. Jesus had no basis to work miracles since they refused to have any faith in him. “He was amazed at their lack of faith.”

2 Corinthians 12:7-10. “Because of the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given me, an angel of Satan, to beat me to keep me from being too elated. Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’” The notes that I read claim that Paul was afflicted, not by a physical or spiritual problem but, by person whom he found to be particularly challenging. Paul had been gifted with quite many visions and ecstasies but, since he was not in heaven dead to this world, he still needed to live in the dirt of this earth. Paul continues, “Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insult, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” Paul is content because he knows that hardships endured with Christ on the cross lead to the joy of the resurrection. If we in our own right feel strong without God, that means that we have filled up ourselves with our own selves, leaving no room for God to be in us. Feeling strong on our own right means that we have deceived ourselves into thinking that we can do for ourselves what only God can do for us. Coming to the recognition and acceptance that only God can give us the strength we need to prosper spiritually against the difficulties of this world is the first step toward holiness. Jesus in John 15:5: “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.”