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Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time John 6/1-15 |
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| Background: Today we interrupt our readings of St. Mark to hear Eucharistic stories from St. John. We see the first signs of a dark cloud descending on Jesus’s public ministry. The first opposition comes not from the authorities in Jerusalem. It comes rather from within the cheering crowds that followed him. They were convinced that he was a wonder worker and that his ability to feed so many people meant that he could lead an army on Jerusalem and expel the Romans. This was nonsense. The Romans routinely beat off small tribal uprisings (as they saw them). A steady supply of food would hardly be enough to overcome Roman swords and spears. The crowds simply didn’t get it. As hard as Jesus had tried to persuade them that they misunderstood the nature of the return of God as king to Jerusalem, they missed the point completely. They were so determined to get rid of the Romans that there was room in their heads for nothing else. The story of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes is deep in Eucharistic symbolism. The bread at the Lord’s supper was as essential for the new community of the followers of Jesus after he went back to the Father as food would be for a military operation. |
read the padre |
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Story: Once upon a time a teenage boy decided he would make ice cream for his family. Now you say that’s silly. What teenage boy would make ice cream and why would he make it for anyone else, any way? Well, I don’t know why he decided to make it, except he like to make things, model ships and airplanes and things like that. Maybe his girl friend told him that he was selfish and he only made things for himself. So he want out and bought one of those ice cream makers and studied recipe books for ice cream and decided he would make his ice cream out of twenty two percent butterfat, which is like, you know, totally gross. Well, the first time he made it, his friends thought it wasn’t so bad, not like Baskins and Robbins of course but all right except why did he do vanilla which was no fun at all. So, since he was a chocolate freak anyway, he got the thickest, richest, darkest dark chocolate he could find and made the grossest dark chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips and mint that has ever existed on the planet earth. Some of the kids thought it was so rich that it was really yucky but he served it raspberry sauce and whipped cream with nuts and they ate every last bit of it. They sang his praises. Some of them said he should open a store. What will you make tomorrow others asked. Well, the next day when they showed up for even grosser dark chocolate ice cream, they found that he had made a delicate strawberry confection. They refused to eat it. Why not chocolate, they demanded. We can’t do the same thing every day, he replied. They stormed away angry. So he took up making pies. |
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