2nd DECEMBER. WEDNESDAY IN ADVENT WEEK 1

1st Reading: Isaiah 25:6-10

"God will wipe away the tears from all faces." - a Messianic vision of the final age.

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever.

Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, look, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain.

Gospel: Matthew 15:29-37

Jesus multiplies the loaves and fishes, so that all eat their fill

After Jesus had left that place, he passed along the Sea of Galilee, and he went up the mountain, where he sat down. Great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the maimed, the blind, the mute, and many others. They put them at his feet, and he cured them, so that the crowd was amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the maimed whole, the lame working and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.

Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, " I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat; and I do not want to send them away hungry, for they might faint on the way." The disciples said to him, " Where are we to get enough bread in the desert to feed so great a crowd?" Jesus asked them, " How many loaves have you?" They said, " Seven, and a few small fish." Then ordering the crowd to sit down on the ground, he took the seven loaves and the fish; and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all of them were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full.

REFLECTIONS AND MEDITATIONS ON THE READINGS

Today's gospel tells of the feeding of hungry people. It is the call from the gospel to each one of us that we have to share whatever we have with our brothers and sisters in need. What we ought to share is not necessary that it should be in form of food. In the gospel food has been depicted as an example to follow in sharing whatever we have been given by our Father in heaven. We have a lot to share with our friends in need. These are like our natural gifts, talents, intelligence etc. Whatever we give to the needy, at times resembles the loaves and fishes. When people share food and resources with strangers, they recognize our interdependence on one another. For example people in the poorest of developing countries have a struggle just to survive.  It is easy to feel powerless in the face of the sheer scale of what feeding the world would require, and move on to "compassion fatigue" and then to numbed indifference. Like the disciples, we ask, " How can we feed so many, with so little?"

Our developed world makes tough trade agreements, creates food mountains and milk-lakes, and diverts financial and human resources into the arms trade rather than to development and education. Even if our leaders and planners are sensible, humane people, they are - like ourselves- caught up in the web of unjust expectations which is "the sin of the world."

Mahatma Ghandi once said, "To the poor man, God does not appear except in the form of bread and in the promise of work." The Eucharist renews the wellsprings of our humanity by a story of bread broken and shared for the life of the world. Let us also break ourselves daily for our friends more especially our vulnerable friends like the disabled, displaced, old people, and children who cannot afford to have their daily bread. Does our parish support some projects in the developing world, or can some local people to be enlisted for such a project?" We are all called to gatherer up the fragments so that nothing gets wasted. Global solutions lie beyond the power of our local parish, that is why we are encouraged to provide that which is our capacity, that is why we are encouraged  to remember the lesson of the fragments.  If we can put a little new heart into our efforts, that will be something worthwhile. If we can become conscious of our wastefulness of world resources, it may be the beginning of repentance.

On the heights

Elevated ground features in both of our readings today. In the first reading, the prophet speaks of a mountain where the Lord invites all to a great banquet. There will rich food and fine wines, and all mourning, sadness and shame will be removed, and even death itself will be destroyed. Here is the vision which lifts us beyond the world as we know it towards another world where all is as God wants it to be.

In the gospel, Jesus goes up the mountainside and large crowds go up there after him. There in the heights of Galilee, Jesus gives speech to the dumb, mobility to the lame, sight to the blind. He goes on to feed the hungry with very limited resources. He feeds them so well  that all ate as much as they wanted, and, even then, there were seven baskets full left over. The vision of Isaiah in the first reading becomes something of a reality in the gospel. Both readings speak to us of a God who wants  us to have life and to have it to the full. Saint Irenaues once said that the glory of God is the human person fully alive. In the gospel, the Lord needed others to bring the sick to him; he needed the disciples to help him feed the crowd. He continues to need us if his life -giving work is to get done. Advent calls on all of us to be instruments of the Lord's life -giving and healing  presence in the world. In advent we pray, " Come Lord Jesus." We also offer ourselves as channels for the Lord's coming.