August 9, 2015

19th Sun., Ordinary Time

August 9, 2015:  Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Can you find 13 links between the outfit
and today's readings, celebration, and season?
Legend below

Listen
  • See 7/26 and 8/2 for more music in line with the gospel
Pope Francis Angelus
Faith only blooms if we allow God's love to open our hearts.  Christ’s words introduce “the dynamics of faith”:  it’s not enough to meet Jesus, read the Bible, or even witness miracles to believe in Him.  Many were close to Jesus but didn't believe; they even despised him.  Their hearts were closed to the Spirit's work.  Faith, like a seed in our heart, blooms when we allow God to draw us to Jesus, and we go to him with an open mind.
With this attitude of faith we can also understand Jesus’ self-description as “bread of life”; whoever is drawn by this love of God goes towards Jesus with faith and receives eternal life from him.  Learn from our best example: Mary, the first person to believe in God by welcoming the flesh of Jesus.
We recall the terrible atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; they arouse horror and repulsion and warn us to reject war and weapons of mass destruction.  How destructive distorted use of scientific and technical progress can be!  This 70th anniversary urges us to pray and strive for peace, to spread brotherhood and a climate of peaceful coexistence.  ‘No’ to war and violence; ‘Yes’ to dialogue and peace!  The only way to win a war is never to wage it.
Pray for justice, peace, perseverance, and hope in El Salvador in the face of their recent suffering from famine, economic turmoil, social clashes, and violence.
Read
Gospel is after loaves/fishes miracle
(Animate)
  • 1 Kgs 19:4-8  Elijah, under tree:  “Enough, Lord!  Take my life....” He fell asleep; then an angel ordered him to get up and eat.  Elijah saw a water jug and cake, ate, and drank.  Strengthened, he walked 40 days and nights to the mountain of God.
  • Ps 34:2-9  "Taste and see the goodness of the Lord."  I'll always praise the Lord.  Glorify the Lord with me; he answered and delivered me.  Look to him and be radiant with joy.  The Lord heard and saved the afflicted.
  • Eph 4:30—5:2  Don't grieve the Spirit.  Remove bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, reviling, and malice from you; be kind, compassionate, and forgiving.  Be imitators of God, and live in love, as Christ loved us and sacrificed himself for us.
  • Jn 6:41-51  The Jews murmured because Jesus said, “I am the bread from heaven”:  “Isn't this Jesus, Joseph's son?  How can he say that?  Jesus:  “No one can come to me unless the Father draw him, and I will raise him.  Everyone who listens to and learns from my Father comes to me.  Whoever believes has eternal life.  Your ancestors ate manna but died; one may eat this bread from heaven and not die.  I am the living bread from heaven; the bread I'll give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
Reflect
    • Creighton:  Like Elijah, we can lose heart, but the Lord is with us and sustains us.   Trusting God is always with us, we can bless the Lord.  We've suffered from distress, but angels have delivered us.  Our faith is about living a life of faith, love, and gratitude in our relationships with God and others no matter what happens.  “It's not about how we weather the storms, but how we dance in the rain.”  Through our communion with, in, and through Jesus, our relationships of love with each other, our listening to and learning from God, and our daily kindness, compassion, and forgiveness, we experience Jesus among us and are empowered to be imitators of God.  
      Eucharistic Bread and Fish
      Rome catacombs
    • One Bread One Body:  "Heart-burn or burn-out?"  Elijah's "Enough!" expresses his burnout.  God sent him an angel to tell him to eat to strengthen him for his journey.  We have the privilege of eating the daily bread of God's Word and the Eucharist.  We'll "burn out" unless our hearts burn in hearing God's Word and breaking his bread.
    • Passionist:  St. John Chrysostom uses the Inn of Hospitality and Bountiful Table as images for our experience of church.  Before baptism the inn is dangerous, with doors dangling on broken hinges, but the inn of the church is one of gracious people, safety, and peace, with doors easily opening to a table of abundant blessing.  The inn calls out, "come to me, all you who hunger and thirst."  May we find strength in his generosity to be gracious, inviting, self-giving, hopeful, and humble.
    • DailyScripture.net:  The bread of life Jesus offers is God's sustaining life.  The Rabbis believed the generation in the wilderness had no part in the life to come.  Jesus claims to be the true bread of heaven that can satisfy our deepest hungers. The manna sustained the Israelites on the way to the Promised Land but didn't give eternal life like Jesus can.  St. Ignatius of Antioch calls the Eucharist the "one bread that provides the medicine of immortality, the antidote for death, and the food that makes us live forever in Christ" (Ad Eph. 20:2)....
      • Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), philosopher with Freiburg doctorate, but career impeded because of her gender.  Converted upon reading St. Teresa's autobiography. Taught at a Dominican girls’ school; lecturer at the Münster Institute for Pedagogy but was thrown out because of Nazi anti-Semitism.  Entered Carmelite monastery; they moved her to keep her safe from Nazis. Killed at Auschwitz in retaliation for Dutch bishops' public condemnation of Nazi racism; authorities targeted Jewish converts to Christianity.  See Wikipedia and Edith Stein, Apostate Saint, and read her essays online.
      • Felim, bishop
    Dress legend
    • 'Tree' pin:  Elijah sat beneath a broom tree and prayed for death;...  (1st reading)
    • 'Angel' pin:   then an angel ordered him to get up and eat (1st reading); the angel of the Lord delivers those who fear the Lord (psalm)
    • 'Walker' pin:  Strengthened, he walked 40 days and nights to Horeb  (1st reading)
    • 'Food' tie:  Taste and see the Lord's goodness  (psalm)
    • 'Jubilee year' button:  Look to God and be radiant with joy (psalm); upcoming Jubilee of Mercy
    • 'Phone' tie bar:  When the afflicted 'call,' the Lord hears and saves them  (psalm)
    • 'Holy Spirit' chain:  Don't grieve the Holy Spirit... (2nd reading)
    • 'Seal' tie pin (forgot; see it here):  ...with which you were 'sealed' (2nd reading)
    • Green suspenders with LOVE sticker:  Ordinary Time season; live in love (2nd reading)
    • 'Wheat' pin:  “I am the bread of life”  (gospel)
    • Crucifix pin:  “The bread I'll give is my flesh for the life of the world.”  (gospel)
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