Homily-Five Loaves and Two Fish

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OK - a lot of you have already been exposed to this interpretation, but for me, this is the first. Our priest gave a homily today on Matthew’s account of the Loaves and Fish.
Athough I am a cradle Catholic, I have not (until rededicating myself the last few years) had an extensive Catechesis (sp?) in younger years. (thus explaining my elementary knowledge:o )

He interpreted this gospel with an emphasis on the people feeding each other with what they already had. Because of my reconversion, IMMEDIATELY I saw all kinds of red flags. The essence of this was on “feeding the poor” and “charity”. WHAT?! I know that this gospel ties in with the Eucharist. What happened to that? What happened to the “Divinity of Christ”?
Does this alternative interpretation have any validity? For the last several years the every time I get this uneasy feeling is when the Holy Spirit seems to be hitting me on the head.🙂 Not that Charity and feeding each other is not according to the gospel, but what does it have to do with THIS gospel? My heart feels sick…and I’m not sure what for!?
 
Teelynn said:
OK - a lot of you have already been exposed to this interpretation, but for me, this is the first. Our priest gave a homily today on Matthew’s account of the Loaves and Fish.
Athough I am a cradle Catholic, I have not (until rededicating myself the last few years) had an extensive Catechesis (sp?) in younger years. (thus explaining my elementary knowledge:o )

He interpreted this gospel with an emphasis on the people feeding each other with what they already had. Because of my reconversion, IMMEDIATELY I saw all kinds of red flags. The essence of this was on “feeding the poor” and “charity”. WHAT?! I know that this gospel ties in with the Eucharist. What happened to that? What happened to the “Divinity of Christ”?
Does this alternative interpretation have any validity? For the last several years the every time I get this uneasy feeling is when the Holy Spirit seems to be hitting me on the head.🙂 Not that Charity and feeding each other is not according to the gospel, but what does it have to do with THIS gospel? My heart feels sick…and I’m not sure what for!?
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The Scripture is quite clear.

Jesus told them to bring the loaves and fish

Jesus blessed it

Jesus gave it to the Apostles (not just anyone)

They in turn were the ones to distribute, and when they ran out, they returned to the Lord for more.

The foreshadowing of Jesus performing the miracle, and of Jesus using His ordained priests to distribute the Bread of Life is of prime importance.

Feeding 5000 men and their families is not the same as the 5000 feeding themselves or sharing what they already had.

I think your priest needs a good Gospel commentary for a Christmas present.

.
 
While I agree with you that “they gave what they had” is probably not a good interpretation of this Gospel, I have no issues with using the Gospel to promote a message of charity. Addressing the fundamental theological truths of the faith is most certainly a good sermon, it is also important to bear in mind that Jesus’s principal commands were to love God and each other. Using this Gospel to teach the Faithful about being charitable to those who have not isn’t a bad thing.

We had a retired priest this morning whom I really enjoy. He tied the Gospel into the Institution of the Eucharist, but made it clear that as Jesus nourishes our souls through the Eucharist we are to ensure that those who are unable to have their bodies nourished because they don’t have food to eat are provided with food to eat. He told a very nice story of a boy in a WWII concentration camp whose hunger became so overwhelming that it was all he could focus on; he even forgot about God. Point being that we have a responsibility to make sure others are physically fed so that they can come to the Eucharist and be spiritually nourished.
 
My priest took it from the aspect of how we should help others instead of being wrapped up in our own problems. He took this from the beginning of the reading when Jesus found out that John the Baptist had been killed, and Jesus wanted to be alone to grieve. But the crowds followed him, and so instead of focusing on his own problems, or on himself, he focused on the people who had gathered around him, and he gave to them what they needed. In the same way as Jesus took the attention away from himself and focused on helping others, we should spend less time worrying about our personal problems and focus on providing others, especially the less fortunate, with what they need.

Although this interpretation isn’t the one that I’ve usually heard, it is still valid. The same piece of scripture can have many different interpretations. Just because one interpretation isn’t typical, doesn’t mean that it isn’t inspired by the Holy Spirit.

I also would say that priests spend a lot more time in prayer and Bible Study than the average Catholic, and they spend hours preparing for each homily, so if anyone is inspired by the Holy Spirit, I would say that it would be a priest.
 
true_believer said:
Although this interpretation isn’t the one that I’ve usually heard, it is still valid. The same piece of scripture can have many different interpretations. Just because one interpretation isn’t typical, doesn’t mean that it isn’t inspired by the Holy Spirit.

This is very true… often there are many levels of theology with each teaching. But when the obvious is rejected (they fed themselves), they I would suggest the homilist spend more hours preparing… None of what happened was possible without Christ.

I also would say that priests spend a lot more time in prayer and Bible Study than the average Catholic, and they spend hours preparing for each homily, so if anyone is inspired by the Holy Spirit, I would say that it would be a priest.
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My priest today kept using the word “miracle”. Not ‘sharing’. He spoke of how the apostles, in wanting to ‘send the people away’, were trying not to have to ‘deal with’ the logistics of the crowd. So He said, “You feed them”. And they, looking at what they had --5 loaves and 2 fishes --were stunned. They literally could not see how ‘they’ could feed the crowd with the ‘little’ there was. So Jesus told them to bring the food to Him. And He (first thing) prayed to God, blessed the food, and gave it back to the disciples–who then started giving out loaf. . .after loaf. . .after loaf. Fish. . .after fish. . .after fish. . .without stop. (Much like the widow’s jar of oil which, when Elisha prayed, miraculously never ran dry for the next 3 years). It was a miracle. . .a miracle which had at its root ultimate trust in GOD and not just in the appearance of things ‘not being enough’. He was also very careful to state that what was distributed was what CHRIST gave-- abundance–and NOT that the crowd, seeing the tiny offering, was ‘moved’ to share. Praise God.

I don’t doubt that on many occasions where there were groups of people who had come to hear Jesus, and had brought food along (much like we do today when we go out to listen to a concert in the park, say) there were some who had not brought much. . .or anything. . .and that the people ‘shared’. But this particular Bible passage is one that speaks not of sharing–itself not a MIRACULOUS action at all --rare, yes, but certainly not miraculous–but of an outright miracle. And to ‘dumb it down’ or to play it too much to the ‘we’re God’s family so we share and that is the TRUE miracle’ is IMO poor theology at best and grossly twisted at worst, depending on the speaker’s intent. Why go with poor theology and easily misunderstood ‘contemporary’ interpretations when the original ‘miracle’ teaching has been there for 2000 years?
 
Teelynn said:
OK - a lot of you have already been exposed to this interpretation, but for me, this is the first. Our priest gave a homily today on Matthew’s account of the Loaves and Fish.
Athough I am a cradle Catholic, I have not (until rededicating myself the last few years) had an extensive Catechesis (sp?) in younger years. (thus explaining my elementary knowledge:o )

He interpreted this gospel with an emphasis on the people feeding each other with what they already had. Because of my reconversion, IMMEDIATELY I saw all kinds of red flags. The essence of this was on “feeding the poor” and “charity”. WHAT?! I know that this gospel ties in with the Eucharist. What happened to that? What happened to the “Divinity of Christ”?
Does this alternative interpretation have any validity? For the last several years the every time I get this uneasy feeling is when the Holy Spirit seems to be hitting me on the head.🙂 Not that Charity and feeding each other is not according to the gospel, but what does it have to do with THIS gospel? My heart feels sick…and I’m not sure what for!?
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This interpretation has been around for a good while, since the early 1900’s at least. It is all part of what developed in protestant churches in the late 1800 to the early to mid 1900’s, theological liberalism.

Many of the ideas that this movement grew out of were originally taught in Germany. In effect what the followers of this trend did was to remove from Christianity everything that was supernatural, virgin birth, miracles, divinity of Christ etc., and essentially reduced Christianity to the necessity of love, the historical person of Jesus, the existence of God in some form or another and ethics. Sin was societal and salvation came not from the blood of Christ but in the ethical uplifting to society in order to attain the type of society that Jesus taught about. The founders of this belief system felt that Christianity had been so compromised and discredited by developments in the sciences, evolution etc, that nothing short of total reconstruction of the faith would save it.

Read the works of Kant, Hume and Heigel, for example; Their philosophical teachings influenced religious professors of the day, for instance Freidrich Schleimucher, the so called father of Theological Liberalism, who said the Bible wasn’t the actual revelation of God and historically or scientifically accurate but is based solely on feelings ,and is a series of narratives that illustrated mans total dependence on God/ It is not to be taken as truth. David Strauss, who de-mythologized Jesus completely saying that the Church had surrounded Jesus with all sorts of mystical leanings to make him appear more than what he was, a good, moral man. David Richel, who said that we needed to get rid of all the superfluous nonsense from the Bible, as he said, remove the chaffe from the grain of the Bible and thus reduced it to God, Christ, the dignity of the soul and love. The so called Social Gospel. No Trinity, no divinity of Jesus, no death and resurrection, no miracles, nothing at all.

The teachings of these men and others like them heavily influenced Catholic theologians such as Leonardo Boff, Yves Congar ,Joan Chittister, John Dominic Crossan, Matthew Fox Hans Küng, Edward Schillebeeckx, and of note, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin a French Jesuit, whose works were condemned by the Holy Office in 1962. The condemnation was reaffirmed in 1981 but many theologians still refer to his writings, including Pope Benedict XVI.:eek:

Sad to say, many of the clergy today still adhere to these beliefs as they were extensively taught in protestant seminaries since the late 1800’s and Catholic seminaries since the 1930’s at least.

It is actually felt by many protestants of the evangelical variety that the entire charismatic movement in protestant circles developed as a backlash against the liberal and modernist views being preached by mainstream preachers of the time period.

The particular interpretation that you describe is one of many that the followers of this system have concocted to show that miracles did not occur and that all can be rationally explained. You should hear the one they came up with concerning Jesus walking on water. :rotfl: It is a classic:thumbsup:
 
Thank you all for your (name removed by moderator)ut…thanks Wanner for the link…excellent! My gut was correct, although, like many have said it’s not necessarily a bad thing to give a homily on feeding each other…IMO, should not be applied to this particular gospel. My first thought was that Fr. took all the emphasis from Jesus performing a miracle and put it squarely on the multitude that he had given the grace of sharing and feeding each other.(THAT was the miracle) Kept waiting for him to clarify, and he never did. We went right into the social ills of today,(global warming, wasting energy, racial descrimination etc) and how to be good stewards and Christians. Didn’t have the flavor of being “Christ centered”.

This did help to reaffirm my feelings, thank you all again.👍
 
palmas85 said:
This interpretation has been around for a good while, since the early 1900’s at least. It is all part of what developed in protestant churches in the late 1800 to the early to mid 1900’s, theological liberalism.

Many of the ideas that this movement grew out of were originally taught in Germany. In effect what the followers of this trend did was to remove from Christianity everything that was supernatural, virgin birth, miracles, divinity of Christ etc., and essentially reduced Christianity to the necessity of love, the historical person of Jesus, the existence of God in some form or another and ethics. Sin was societal and salvation came not from the blood of Christ but in the ethical uplifting to society in order to attain the type of society that Jesus taught about. The founders of this belief system felt that Christianity had been so compromised and discredited by developments in the sciences, evolution etc, that nothing short of total reconstruction of the faith would save it.

Read the works of Kant, Hume and Heigel, for example; Their philosophical teachings influenced religious professors of the day, for instance Freidrich Schleimucher, the so called father of Theological Liberalism, who said the Bible wasn’t the actual revelation of God and historically or scientifically accurate but is based solely on feelings ,and is a series of narratives that illustrated mans total dependence on God/ It is not to be taken as truth. David Strauss, who de-mythologized Jesus completely saying that the Church had surrounded Jesus with all sorts of mystical leanings to make him appear more than what he was, a good, moral man. David Richel, who said that we needed to get rid of all the superfluous nonsense from the Bible, as he said, remove the chaffe from the grain of the Bible and thus reduced it to God, Christ, the dignity of the soul and love. The so called Social Gospel. No Trinity, no divinity of Jesus, no death and resurrection, no miracles, nothing at all.

The teachings of these men and others like them heavily influenced Catholic theologians such as Leonardo Boff, Yves Congar ,Joan Chittister, John Dominic Crossan, Matthew Fox Hans Küng, Edward Schillebeeckx, and of note, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin a French Jesuit, whose works were condemned by the Holy Office in 1962. The condemnation was reaffirmed in 1981 but many theologians still refer to his writings, including Pope Benedict XVI.:eek:

Sad to say, many of the clergy today still adhere to these beliefs as they were extensively taught in protestant seminaries since the late 1800’s and Catholic seminaries since the 1930’s at least.

It is actually felt by many protestants of the evangelical variety that the entire charismatic movement in protestant circles developed as a backlash against the liberal and modernist views being preached by mainstream preachers of the time period.

The particular interpretation that you describe is one of many that the followers of this system have concocted to show that miracles did not occur and that all can be rationally explained. You should hear the one they came up with concerning Jesus walking on water. :rotfl: It is a classic:thumbsup:
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I believe next week is Jesus walking on water…almost afraid to ask what spin they put on that one?:whacky: According to the schedule, someone else will say Mass…whew!!
 
My personal thought is that these kinds of things are an attempt to make a “bread king” out of Jesus! Which is why he disappeared after he saw what the crowd was going to do.
 
I believe next week is Jesus walking on water…almost afraid to ask what spin they put on that one? According to the schedule, someone else will say Mass…whew!!
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That always reminds me of the bulletin bloopers. . .
Seen on billboard outside Church:
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This week’s sermon: Jesus walks on water.
Next weeks sermon: Searching for Jesus.
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Teelynn said:
I believe next week is Jesus walking on water…almost afraid to ask what spin they put on that one?:whacky: According to the schedule, someone else will say Mass…whew!!
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Allow me. A brief summary of the story first is in order…

After feeding the five thousand, Jesus sends his disciples ahead of him in a boat to cross the Sea of Galilee. Several hours later in the night, the disciples encounter a storm. Jesus comes to them, walking on the water. This terrifies the disciples and they think they are seeing a ghost. Jesus tells them in verse 27, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” Peter replies, “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water.” So Jesus invites Peter to come. Peter gets out of the boat and begins walking on the water toward Jesus. But when Peter takes his eyes off Jesus and sees the wind and waves, he begins to sink. Peter cries out to the Lord and Jesus immediately reaches out his hand and catches Peter. As they climb into the boat together, the storm ceases. Then the disciples worship Jesus, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

Well, what really happened was this. The Apostles fell asleep on the boat, remember they always had trouble staying awake,:tsktsk: waking up in the middle of the storm, which was almost over. In the course of the storm they had been blown almost to shore but did not realize it. Seeing Jesus they called out to him and Jesus, seeing that they were close to shore started wading out to them. Peter leaps out and starts towards Jesus but steps into a hole at the same time he looks away from Jesus, and starts to go down.:bigyikes: Jesus grabs him and rights him. They both get in the boat together. As they did so, the storm blew past them and the sky cleared.👍 👍

I told you it was pretty good huh?:dancing:

The moral is to keep your eyes on Jesus at all times and presumably stay awake:thumbsup:
 
palmas85 said:
Allow me. A brief summary of the story first is in order…

After feeding the five thousand, Jesus sends his disciples ahead of him in a boat to cross the Sea of Galilee. Several hours later in the night, the disciples encounter a storm. Jesus comes to them, walking on the water. This terrifies the disciples and they think they are seeing a ghost. Jesus tells them in verse 27, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” Peter replies, “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water.” So Jesus invites Peter to come. Peter gets out of the boat and begins walking on the water toward Jesus. But when Peter takes his eyes off Jesus and sees the wind and waves, he begins to sink. Peter cries out to the Lord and Jesus immediately reaches out his hand and catches Peter. As they climb into the boat together, the storm ceases. Then the disciples worship Jesus, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

Well, what really happened was this. The Apostles fell asleep on the boat, remember they always had trouble staying awake,:tsktsk: waking up in the middle of the storm, which was almost over. In the course of the storm they had been blown almost to shore but did not realize it. Seeing Jesus they called out to him and Jesus, seeing that they were close to shore started wading out to them. Peter leaps out and starts towards Jesus but steps into a hole at the same time he looks away from Jesus, and starts to go down.:bigyikes: Jesus grabs him and rights him. They both get in the boat together. As they did so, the storm blew past them and the sky cleared.👍 👍

I told you it was pretty good huh?:dancing:

The moral is to keep your eyes on Jesus at all times and presumably stay awake:thumbsup:
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WOW! Wonder if this is just a fluke or will Fr. follow this trend? We will see. I will wait to see what if any action I should take if this continues. They might label this “theological liberalism” just another term for heresy if you ask me.:rolleyes:
 
I heard something similar, but the point being made in the homily was that people often fail to give what they have to others thinking it’s not enough and that by working with God sometimes it can be enough.

Granted…I’m in Chicago…and I’m not totally sure where Catholicland is.
 
Teelynn said:
OK - a lot of you have already been exposed to this interpretation, but for me, this is the first. Our priest gave a homily today on Matthew’s account of the Loaves and Fish.
Athough I am a cradle Catholic, I have not (until rededicating myself the last few years) had an extensive Catechesis (sp?) in younger years. (thus explaining my elementary knowledge:o )

He interpreted this gospel with an emphasis on the people feeding each other with what they already had. Because of my reconversion, IMMEDIATELY I saw all kinds of red flags. The essence of this was on “feeding the poor” and “charity”. WHAT?! I know that this gospel ties in with the Eucharist. What happened to that? What happened to the “Divinity of Christ”?
Does this alternative interpretation have any validity? For the last several years the every time I get this uneasy feeling is when the Holy Spirit seems to be hitting me on the head.🙂 Not that Charity and feeding each other is not according to the gospel, but what does it have to do with THIS gospel? My heart feels sick…and I’m not sure what for!?
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Hi Tee! 👋

Yes, I heard a few years ago at a former parish that the “real” miracle of the loaves and fishes was that everyone shared what they had. Er…yeah… That’s a nice thought, and there probably was some sharing going on, but that was not the miracle and NOT the point. When I hear that kind of thing in a Catholic church I sometimes wonder why the priest is not heading up his own denomination down the street.

This morning we were happy to get a lovely homily on how the loaves and fishes prefigure the Eucharist, and that there is grace left over after all have partaken. And father took the opportunity to talk about the couple of infamous abuses of the Eucharist in the news lately, and to remind us to go to confession.

My parish makes me wanna dance! :extrahappy:

ps…I love how the verbs in this gospel are the only other time we hear the actions from the Last Supper. Took…blessed…broke…gave. I can’t take credit for that, I read it in Scott Hahn’s book, but it’s just awesome!
 
Teelynn said:
OK - a lot of you have already been exposed to this interpretation, but for me, this is the first. Our priest gave a homily today on Matthew’s account of the Loaves and Fish.
Athough I am a cradle Catholic, I have not (until rededicating myself the last few years) had an extensive Catechesis (sp?) in younger years. (thus explaining my elementary knowledge:o )

He interpreted this gospel with an emphasis on the people feeding each other with what they already had. Because of my reconversion, IMMEDIATELY I saw all kinds of red flags. The essence of this was on “feeding the poor” and “charity”. WHAT?! I know that this gospel ties in with the Eucharist. What happened to that? What happened to the “Divinity of Christ”?
Does this alternative interpretation have any validity? For the last several years the every time I get this uneasy feeling is when the Holy Spirit seems to be hitting me on the head.🙂 Not that Charity and feeding each other is not according to the gospel, but what does it have to do with THIS gospel? My heart feels sick…and I’m not sure what for!?
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While I heard about priests that do this, today was the first time I ever experienced it in a homily. To his credit he qualified his remarks, but they still had no business in a homily.

The new twist is that it was the poor that provided the food as they would have been carrying their dinner, while the wealthy would have been carrying money to buy their food.
 
just wanted to share what i recieved out of the gospel reading.

it mentions that they were in a deserted place.

well, our Lord is so moved in our “deserted places” that in them He will make a way to nourish our souls during these dry times.
 
Teelynn said:
WOW! Wonder if this is just a fluke or will Fr. follow this trend? We will see. I will wait to see what if any action I should take if this continues. They might label this “theological liberalism” just another term for heresy if you ask me.:rolleyes:
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Sad to say every single miraculous story found in scripture has one or more of these “explanations” attached to it. Every thing from the Virgin birth, I won’t get into it but it has a lot to do with the virginity of Mary prior to the birth of Jesus, and that fact leading to his unique views on life in general and of women in particular, to his death and supposed :eek: resurrection. Note the word supposed. They also use this same line of reasoning to explain why the Apostles wanted to keep the story going. All very logically explained.

Also just as an aside, they will also invariably deny the existance of Hell and of judgement as well, for that matter. Purgatory? a concept best discarded, a hold over from the Middle Ages, Angels, nonsense, demons, well since Satan or Lucifer don’t exist, how could there be demons?👍

I will guarantee you there are members in your congregation, catechists who instruct CCD and RCIA, theologians, **posters on this forum, ** priests Bishops, Cardinals and others who buy into this mindset hook line and sinker.

Make no mistake about it. They are here, they believe in these ideas and will stop at nothing to get their view across.
 
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