Sunday Faith Reflection

Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.

Once again, this week’s readings seem providentially ideal for pivoting from last week’s theme to next week’s. Last week I discussed the muddle of modernity, and how materialism and its aftermath left us spiritually desiccated. Here’s the first reading for this week:

Why spend your money for what is not bread;
your wages for what fails to satisfy?
Heed me, and you shall eat well,
you shall delight in rich fare.
Come to me heedfully,
listen, that you may have life.

Isaiah 55 1-2

It’s a beautiful pairing of readings. Isaiah first makes the obvious point that while bread may feed us for a day, we need spiritual food to be genuinely happy and fulfilled. Where would we get that? It comes from Jesus, of course. This Sunday’s Gospel is especially moving because it begins here:

When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist,
he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself.
The crowds heard of this and followed him on foot from their towns.
When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd,
his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick.

Matthew 14 13-17

He’s grieving and wants to be alone. But the people won’t cut him any slack; their needs are relentless. He could yell at them to go away, but he doesn’t. They’re sick, so he heals them. They’re hungry, so he feeds them. He’s got bigger problems than any of them can understand, but he still makes their problems his own.

Another nice detail from today’s Gospel: When the Apostles tell Jesus that the people are hungry, he initially asks them to handle it themselves. They acknowledge that the problem is beyond them. “Five loaves and two fish are all that we have here.” At that point, Jesus turns their lack into plenty, and everybody gets enough.

The story of modernity can easily be read as this same narrative writ large. The moderns have in fact done an excellent job of feeding people. It turns out though that their provision is grossly inadequate to fill the actual scope of human need. Where should we go from there, then? This will be the subject of next week’s discussion. It’ll be more than just a week-long injunction to “let go and let God,” but I do think it’s important to begin by moving beyond the modern tendency to assume that some human science or political program can “fix it.”

At the same time, nothing is beyond fixing for God, a point St. Paul drives home very forcefully in the second reading.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities,
nor present things, nor future things,
nor powers, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature will be able to separate us
from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8 37-39