"He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, “Ephphatha!”— that is, “Be opened!” Mk 7:33-34

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

What we hear in today's Gospel is part of the Baptismal rite. If you are Christian, as a child or an adult this was said on you. The idea is that before baptism we are deaf and mute. Obviously this is in spiritual terms. But what does that mean? Even though you can listen to the words that are said, you can't receive them until the Spirit opens your ears to be able to understand and receive them. There are so many examples of words like these: Jesus is God. Jesus resurrected. You are infinitely valuable. You do not need to prove anything. God loves you. You are not alone… The list can go on forever. These words are incredibly powerful! But sometimes we resist them or do not believe them. For some of us they might even move us to tears, for others they may even seem like a bad joke.

In today’s Gospel Jesus confronts the Pharisees – and implicitly each of us – with the truth of their religiosity: “You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.” The external rituals developed as aids for the observance of God’s commandments have gradually taken the place of God’s commandment and have become like ends in themselves. It’s always easier to fixate on the external signs of religiosity and to seek our security and self-affirmation in their observance, rather than to seek out the Lord’s will and fulfill it with an open heart that welcomes his commandment like hunger welcomes bread. The Pharisees, rather than seeking the Lord in his commandment, seek themselves in it. They don’t receive the commandment like the mysterious gift that it is, in and through which they can encounter God and his love, but rather wear it on their sleeves, wield it like body armor, and make themselves impermeable to the Lord with the human traditions they have built up around it.

Jesus turns to the Twelve, his closest disciples and asks, “Do you also want to leave?”

I don’t know about you, but there have been many times during my life as a Christian where I have wrestled with teachings of the Church, or have found it difficult to live in total accord with God’s commandments. At times like these, it can be tempting to walk away, or to think to myself, “is this worth it? Surely Jesus is asking too much of me.” Sometimes I look at my friends who are outside of the Church and feel like life must be easier or more fun in their shoes.

But, when Jesus looks at me and asks “Do you also want to leave?” I find myself feeling like St. Peter, and realizing that I don’t want to turn away.

The image of bread also shows the intense union in which He remains in us and in which we remain in him. Bread is made of grains of wheat, water, yeast and salt yet in the final product these ingredients are indivisible and inseparable. They have been baked into one unity and many metaphors can be drawn from how we are unified in Christ into his body. Saint Augustine says “ Understand and rejoice. One bread; what is this one bread? The one body which-we being many, are. Remember that bread is not made from one grain, but from many. When you were being exorcized, it's as though you were being ground. When You were baptized it's as though you were mixed into dough. When you received the fire of the Holy Spirit, it's as though you were baked. Be what you can see, and receive what you are.” We are no longer individual grains of wheat, we are united into something bigger than ourselves, Christ himself.

We’re on John chapter 6 again for the third consecutive Sunday. This chapter is famous for the Discourse of the Bread of Life. First came the miracle (sign) of the multiplication if the loaves, and then comes the explanation, Jesus teaching us how to interpret the sign.

The message is: Jesus speaks of himself as the true Bread come down from heaven, which is capable of keeping people alive not for a moment or on a stretch of a journey but for ever. How can He give us life? By introducing us into His very life at the bosom of the Father, into His arms, into His resting place, beholding the face of the Abba as He beholds us and sighs.

In the Gospel today, we continue to move through the Eucharistic scene of John 6. We see that after being fed miraculously, people began to trust Jesus to give them life, and were willing to seek Him out. They even traveled across the Sea of Galilee to find Jesus when they had lost Him. They had received life and desired to go back to the source. They seemingly must have had so much trust that Jesus could sustain them that they stopped, or at least paused, their conventional means of finding life. (ie. back at home, working a job, being with their families/guilds, etc.) They no longer wanted to labor for food that perishes, and for a brief moment asked how they can work for “the food that endures for eternal life.”

The words that stood out to me in today's Gospel passage are "so that nothing will be wasted" (John 6:12). Jesus not only provides enough food for the vast number of people that came out to listen to Him, but there is so much food that there are leftovers! He asks the disciples to gather what is leftover so that nothing will be wasted. Reflecting on my spiritual life and experiences, I truly believe that this is how God works for all of us - that nothing is wasted. God does not waste our sufferings, He does not waste our gifts and talents, our prayers, He does not not waste anything! What an important reminder that God has a plan for every tiny detail of our lives. Nothing is overlooked.

In today's Gospel reading, we read how Jesus and his disciples look for some rest after their busy ministry. However, there were unable to find it, with such a big crowd following them. Despite not even having enough “time to eat” and surely very tired, Jesus responds compassionately to the crowd, putting aside his own needs and ministering to them. Jesus shows us by example how true leadership must be motivated by love, or the willing of the good of the other.

A faith-filled “yes” to God holds so much power, and can literally lead to miracles. The decision to let go of our doubts, our egos, our fears, and to say yes to what God is asking of us can be so hard, but it’s a decision that can change our lives and change the world. Suddenly, like Amos and the apostles, we can go from people living for ourselves to people totally alive and capable of anything God entrusts to us. How is Jesus trying to send you on mission? What are the fears and doubts keeping you from a heartfelt “yes”? Let us go forward boldly, with full confidence in the one who is sending us.

When Jesus begins teaching in the synagogue he’s first met with awe and wonder, but then things change when he’s recognized as “the carpenter, the son of Mary…” All of a sudden, the crowd turns obstinate, taking offense that one of their own would claim to have such authority. Friends, if we are living as true missionary disciples of Christ, I’m sure we can all resonate with this experience of feeling either rejected, or maybe just not fully understood or received by family and friends on account of our Catholic faith. This experience is hard, but it’s also an opportunity to let the Lord mold our hearts with deeper humility and a greater faith in His love and mercy.

The second miracle we see Jesus perform is the healing of the synagogue official, Jairus’ daughter with the instruction: “do not be afraid; just have faith”. With the Lord we never have to fear because with faith we have the ability to know that our God will take care of all things even when at times it's not how we would have wanted Him to. I'm sure Jairus would have preferred if his daughter never had gotten so ill or was never pronounced dead, but Jesus shows He is in control of all things by healing this girl- “Talitha koum–Little girl, I say to you arise!” So maybe none of us are physically dead, but what are the things we need to arise from that are holding us back from being fully alive?

Today's reading is a good reminder that God is so much bigger than we think. He's bigger than our lives, our families, our city, this year of 2024 - He's bigger than the wind and the weather! Let us take this opportunity to renew our trust in the Lord. That even when we don't see a way out of a difficult situation, God is bigger than that situation and He will surprise us.

In both of the examples of the scattered seeds and the mustard seed, the Lord seems to be telling us that the Kingdom of God grows in a mysterious way that we cannot control. The Lord needs us to scatter the seed, which is the “Good News” of his salvation. But we can rest assured that while we are “sleeping,” he will bring about the growth, both in our own lives as well as in the lives of others. This is what the Church refers to as grace. 

Look at the radical differences in people’s response to Jesus. Some are scandalized and explain his actions as insanity, some reject him and say that he is acting as the devil, and finally some believe in Jesus, and are willing to navigate the chaos and impoliteness in order to find him, in order to see him, in order to maybe even touch him. Notice how everyone in the story had some type of radical response to Jesus. No one was mentioned as having just walked away uninterested.

Have you ever felt such a profound affection for someone that you want to just eat them up? Have you ever loved someone so deeply, so completely, that you want there to be absolutely no space or distance between the two of you? That is how God loves us! Jesus looks at each one of us with such an all-consuming depth of love that he says “Take and eat, this is my body and blood, given for you.”