-
Credit: wideonet/Shutterstock. Catholic News Agency
Father Charles Puthota, Ph.D., is pastor of St. Elizabeth Parish, San Francisco.
July 30, 2020
Charles Puthota, Ph.D.
Scripture reflection for Sunday, Aug. 2, 2020
What seems like ages ago, at age 17, having just joined a Jesuit novitiate, I started reading the Bible seriously for the first time. To my surprise, I often found myself moved to tears. St. Ignatius of Loyola would call it the gift of tears and a sign of spiritual consolation. I felt God intimately as I could hear him speak to me in the depths of my heart through the Word of God, filling me not only with thoughts and convictions but also feelings.
The second reading from Romans this Sunday was one such passage that spoke to me with such brilliance of truth and depth of feeling that I memorized it and to this day am able to recite it. While browsing books in bookstores and libraries, a favorite hobby, and when I get to the Bible section, I have the habit of turning to Romans, Chapter 8, and read almost aloud those verses, to test various Bible versions and see how they compare to my memorized Revised Standard Version of the passage. This exercise always fills me with pure delight and even a sense of adventure. Even more important, in this passage, God speaks to me now as he did decades ago and deepens my convictions and calling, encounters and energizes me, consoles and comforts me, renews and refreshes me, strengthens and sends me out to do his work of love and service.
That God loves us may just be a cliché for many of us. What Paul is saying is that God loves us abundantly, in fact, superabundantly, on account of which nothing can come in the way of his love. God’s love is abundant, overflowing, lavish, irrational, prodigal, and extravagant. When God loves us so totally and overwhelmingly, his love has the mighty power to overcome any situation we may be pitted against. Paul lists two sets of such situations we face. No matter how calamitous our crises may be, God’s love in Jesus will see us through it all safely because “nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
This would apply to our present Covid crisis as well. If we as a human family all work together with faith, common sense, and determination, we can sense deeply that God’s love is guiding us through all this death and suffering so we can find our way back to health and safety.
The people of Israel had their own crisis which God addresses in the first reading. They were in Babylonian exile. Deutero-Isaiah (chapters 40-55) speaks of God’s abundance toward them. The crisis notwithstanding, God will give them food and drink, not just in the material sense, but they have to come to him “heedfully” and “listen.” He “will renew…the everlasting covenant….” God’s abundance will lead people to freedom, and no power on earth can stop it.
In the Gospel, people who are hungry for food, both physical and spiritual, follow Jesus and interrupt him at his rest and recuperation. Jesus feeds them with an abundance of food and heals the sick, all of which point to the Messianic banquet where God’s blessings will be immeasurable and people will find forever their happiness and fulfillment.
Obviously, we cannot miss here the eucharistic overtones. Jesus takes the food, blesses it, breaks it and gives it to the people. At the Last Supper, Jesus will also take the bread, bless it, break it, and give it to his apostles. The body of Jesus will be broken on the altar of the cross. God will take his son Jesus, bless him, break him, and give him to us so that we may “have life and have it abundantly.”
Eucharist, in ritual and romance, enshrines God’s abundance for us. Eucharist enlarges life. With the potential for eternity, life is not to be restricted or limited. Racisim, disease, injustice, poverty, discrimination, selfishness, violence, war, greed, and deprivations all conspire to limit life. Eucharist impels us to oppose all such toxic forces. Having been fed by the body and blood of Jesus, we take his memory, message and mission to expand life for everyone toward the fullness of life.
Eucharist leads us to surprise, even shock, others, especially those who are disadvantaged, with goodness, kindness, and generosity. Yes, sharing material things is necessary, but they are symbolic of our deep, selfless, and liberating love for one another. God in Jesus Christ is overabundant in creation and redemption in an ongoing way through his absolute love for us. Striving to imitate him is the way we can truly be the children of God.