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Saint Alphonsus Mary de’ Liguori, Bishop, Doctor

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Saint Alphonsus Mary de’ Liguori, Bishop, Doctor

Jeremiah 28:1-17
Matthew 14:13-21

As we have been hearing for the past several days in the liturgy’s daily first readings, Israel was on the brink of invasion by the Babylonians, a threatening world power of the time. 
Jeremiah’s blunt message
and warning for Israel to repent and prepare itself for what was about to happen, earned him scorn and violent repression by his contemporaries. 

We hear more of the same in today’s first reading (Jer. 28:1-17). Here arose a royal prophet by name Hananiah. Hananiah was a self-proclaimed prophet and a soothsayer . He tells the people what they want to hear—God will “break the yoke of the king of Babylon” and everything will be well.  They had nothing to fear and no reason to change their ways. But Jeremiah was a truth teller and he exposes Hananiah as a false prophet, feeding the people lies.

In this political season we hear a lot of claims how we can solve the world’s problems—the violence, the insecurity, the economic inequity, the fate of so many refugees and immigrants.  In the spirit of Jeremiah, we should be wary of those who give us easy answers without requiring any change of heart on our part, without any sacrifices or transformation of our habits. 

In contrast with the false hopes fed to the people by someone like Hananiah and some contemporary hollow voices, we hear in the gospel passage today the account of Jesus’ feeding of the multitudes (Mt 14:13-21), a vivid story that is found in all four gospels.  The disciples want to send the crowds away and not bother with them.  But Jesus, God’s Son, gives true, nourishing food to those who hunger—that is the fundamental message of this miracle of the loaves and fishes. 

The miracle of the multiplication of loaves recalls the story of God’s feeding the people with manna in the desert and anticipates the future reality of Eucharistic sacrifice still to come.  Jesus here teaches his disciples about their own mission: to feed with real food people who are hungry, to reach out to the needs of others and not send them away with indifference, to entrust our lives to God’s loving providence and to live in hope.

Pope Francis has reminded us over and over again that to achieve true peace and security we need to change our ways and learn to share our resources with other and adapt a different way of looking at our responsibility toward God’s creation and God’s people. May God grant us the grace to make our world a better place. Amen.

Fr. Osho

Credit:
This article is written by Rev Fr. Joseph Osho OSJ. Please visit his personal blog @ https://www.blogger.com/profile/10377666931103644634
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