“Come and Get It!”

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reflecting on the Word

By Rev. James A. Wallace, C.Ss.R.

A TV series featured an English chef going into an elementary school in  Huntington, West Virginia, trying to change the children’s eating habits. The resistance he first encounters is fierce. The children choose pizza over fresh chicken,  throwing the beans and salad into the trash. Even sadder was the resistance of  the adults: the women who prepare lunch, the school principal, and even the  food supervisor of the school system. 

We see Jesus feeding people in many ways throughout the Gospels: by his  words and deeds, by his preaching, teaching, and healing. In today’s account, he  literally feeds a crowd of over five thousand with five loaves and two fish. This  event is a sign of God’s ongoing desire to meet our hungers with generosity and  life-giving nourishment. 

This feeding reveals Jesus as his Father’s Son, the God who calls people to  come, eat and drink without paying, without cost. God wants to feed us so we  have and share life with others. We can refuse both the food of God’s word and  the food of the Eucharist, even when we receive it with our ears and mouths, by  not taking it into our lives. 

The word “heed” comes twice in the first reading: “Heed me and you shall eat  well . . . Come to me heedfully, listen, that you may have life.” God cries for us  to hear, to listen “that you may have life,” to receive the love of God revealed in  Jesus, and let it nourish us into eternal life. 

Consider/Discuss

  • Do you take and digest the food that God feeds you at the table of  the word and the table of the Eucharist? 
  • Are you willing to distribute the food of God’s word and God’s love  to others, as the disciples were asked to do? 

Responding to the Word

We pray that we fully take in the food Jesus gives to us. We ask that the bread  of the word and the bread of the Eucharist be nourishment that strengthens us  in this life and enables us to walk in the way of the Lord. We pray that we may  give this food to others.

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