As kids, my friends and I often quizzed each other about what we’d do if we had superpowers. How would we save the day? With all the superhero movies popular today, it seems the whole world wonders: What would a real savior look like?
I would like to use three words to guide my reflection on the readings for today: humility, humility and humility.
In a rare turn of events, our regularly scheduled readings for this Sunday (typically from John’s Gospel) take a momentary back seat as we celebrate the solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. To wit: Mary, because of the awesome grace at work in her life and her role as Mother of God, was preserved from any corruption at the end of her life and taken up to heaven, body and soul.
When Elizabeth II was crowned queen of England in 1953, it was the first time such a ceremony was fully televised. It was a grand event as usual, but this time the scope was much larger. People not only in the United Kingdom but all over the world could watch the event. Elizabeth effectively had been reigning since the death of her father more than a year earlier, but the coronation ceremony and celebrations were delayed to allow for an appropriate length of time for mourning. That day, June 2, 1953, was a chance for the nation to celebrate its new monarch in proper fashion.
When was the last time that you were really, really hungry? Weak, delirious and ready to pass out from hunger?
Why does God ask us to do anything? This might seem like an odd question, but the Gospel passage we contemplate here, the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000, certainly raises the issue. When the apostles bring the problem of the hungry crowd to Jesus, the Gospel tells us that “he himself knew what he was going to do.” He already has everything under control and needs no help to feed the crowds. If he wanted to, Christ could have produced bread out of nothing rather than multiply the little that was at hand and offered. So why does he use the five loaves and two fish? If he doesn’t really need the help, what is the point?
Have you ever made it to the end of a week feeling completely exhausted from doing good work, only to find that the emails and phone messages keep stacking up? As the saying goes: “The reward for good work is more work.” Such is the case for the apostles in our Gospel today (Mk 6:30-34). They’ve been out and about preaching, teaching, forgiving sins and healing in Christ’s name. Apparently, it was wildly successful.
There’s an important word in today’s Gospel. It’s a word we heard earlier in Mark’s Gospel, way back in January on the fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time. At that point, still early on in Jesus’ public ministry, he was teaching in a synagogue (Mk 1:21-28). The Gospel told us that people were astonished because he taught them not as the scribes but as one having “authority,” and with that same “authority” he cast a demon out of a man.
It is fun on occasion to take note of people’s different taste preferences. If you like sweet and sour dishes, there are two courses for you to enjoy in the banquet provided in this Sunday’s readings.
On a trip to Tokyo years ago, my friends and I visited a Shinto shrine in the heart of the city. Our tour-guide explained the local custom: To pray in the temple, the locals believed that you had to clap twice to wake up the god who lived there. At the time, I laughed to myself and thought, “What good is a God who takes naps? Who wants a deity who’s asleep at the switch?”
