Videos from selected homilists; Transcript excerpts from Fr. Hawkswell, Fr. Fleming, Fr. Chama, Msgr. Pellegrino, Fr. Sigma, Fr. Kavanaugh’s homilies; Bishop Barron podcasts; Life Issues; Doctrinal Homily Outlines
B.C. CATHOLIC | 2021
This Sunday’s Readings parallel last Sunday’s. There is the same emphasis on food and there is the same duality between the Old and the New Testaments. The climax comes in the Gospel Reading, when Christ said, “I am the bread of life.”
For the next three Sundays, the Gospel Readings continue Christ’s discourse on the Holy Eucharist. Later in this discourse, he said plainly: “I myself am the living bread come down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread he shall live forever; the bread I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.”
“Let me solemnly assure you,” he said: “if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. He who feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has life eternal and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood real drink.”
KUALA LUMPUR | 2018
Today’s readings can certainly resonate with us. It’s all about food, the basis for most of our comments, complaints and adulation. But before we consider these readings, let us find out what scripture says about food. It certainly agrees with what most Malaysians believe – it’s more than just a matter of survival. Food was used as a symbol of God’s Providence as well as a source of temptation. From the very beginning of time, when God first created the universe, His intention was that we would all come to Him to receive the grace, wisdom, and strength we needed. Genesis uses the image of the two fruit-bearing, food-providing trees in the Garden of Eden to convey this central truth: The tree of life held all the treasures of His divine plan, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil supported the philosophy that we could decide for ourselves what was right or wrong — we didn’t need to be fed and sustained by God.
Related Homilies
Let Us Hunger for the Lord (2015)
A CONCORD PASTOR COMMENTS | 2015
The Israelites, freed from servitude in Egypt, are crossing the desert on the way to the Promised Land and: They. Are. Hungry. In fact, they are so hungry that they tell Moses m“You know what, Moses? We had it better as slaves back in Egypt where we had bread and meat every day. Maybe we should have stayed there!”
Do we see, do we understand what’s going on here? This isn’t just about choices on a menu. Here are people: who would trade in their freedom – for the sake of comfort; who would surrender their autonomy – in return for pleasure; who would lay aside their beliefs – in favor of personal satisfaction. Such an ancient account may at least at first sound primitive to us but it tells a story very much alive in our own day and it raises questions for how we live.
Related Homilies
HOMILETIC DIAKONIA | 2018
Homily preached at the 13th Annual Meeting of the Boston Colloquy in Historical Theology.
The Word of God has been spread abroad in human history. It lies before us like miraculous bread, the food of the kingdom upon which we will feast eternally, waiting to be gathered so that it may nourish us on our pilgrimage through that history to the new Jerusalem. We gather what has been spread abroad, the supersubstantial bread of the Word, finding it sometimes in the most unlikely places: Christologies of mixture and early Christian dialogues, the writings of James of Eltville and of Reginald Pole, texts from St. Thomas and, yes, even Scotus. We come across a previously unknown manuscript or some long-ignored passage in Augustine mand we ask one another, “What is this?” It is the bread that the Lord has given us to eat, and not just us, but all of God’s pilgrim people.
As we ply our craft, in archives and classrooms, committee meetings and academic colloquies, we should always bear in our hearts those words: it is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. And even more we should bear in our hearts the words of Jesus: “Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you…. I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”
THIS HOMILY IS FOR THE 21ST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
SINGLE HUMANITY | 2018
This Sunday’s readings send me back to the choice I have made in my life; most especially to check how I’m living them out. I suppose, you too, you have made several choices in your life. How are you living them? Let’s profit from this Sunday and see how we can gain a new momentum in living fully our choices.
If we do the recap of chapter 6 of the Gospel according to John, that we have been reading the past few Sundays, it all began with the multiplication of five bread and two fish and over five thousand persons ate to their satisfaction, and there were leftovers. Excited, the people thought of Jesus as the promised messiah, so why hesitate? They wanted to make him their king. Euphoria! Jesus sneaked away, but the people went searching for him. Realising that they had missed the point of this gesture, Jesus took time to explain. His intention was not just to give bread for the bellies, but he was himself the bread from heaven who came to give lasting life, by his own body and bread. Intolerable!
Fr. Chama’s homily is divided into the following sections:
From Euphoria to Deception
Popularity?Numbers?
This is Inaceptable.
Choice Founded on Trust in Jesus
Go Back to Your Sichem
DIOCESE OF ST. PETERSBURG | 2021
The Gospel reading this week is the second of five Sundays on the Sixth Chapter of John, the chapter on the Bread of Life. The Church presents every three years. Why? All so we can have a deeper insight and appreciation for the Eucharist. The Gospel of John was completed the last decade of the first century. By then, the Church had a clear way of putting into words the miracle of the Eucharist.
Last Sunday’s Gospel from the beginning of chapter 6 presented the miracle of the loaves and fish with a special slant added by John’s community. The multiplication took place as the Passover approached. This pointed to another Passover when Jesus would also provide bread, His very Body and Blood, the Bread of Heaven. It also noted that different from the unused manna which would be destroyed, the fragments of unused bread were to be gathered up. This is the biblical basis for the care of the Eucharist so that it might be brought to the sick and worshiped in our tabernacles.
In today’s reading Jesus spoke to people who came looking for Him. This took place the day after the multiplication. Jesus had sent his disciples to cross the Sea of Galilee by boat. Later that night He joined them on that boat, walking on the water.
Related Homilies
Ya Gotta East (2018)
What is the Food We Are Looking For? (2012)
The Only Food that Matters (2009)
Do We Want His Bread? (2006) – PDF
CATHOLIC PREACHING | 2000
In the Gospel, we see that those who received Jesus’ free meal in the miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fish were looking for another free meal. Jesus called them out on it: “Amen, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs” — in other words, because you saw me perform a miracle and it’s led you to put faith in me and in my words — “but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” They came because of their material hunger and saw Jesus as a means to address their material needs.
This is not evil in itself. Jesus would teach us to pray, “Give us today our daily bread.” Many of us come to the Lord not just with wants but real material needs, not knowing how we’re going to pay the rent, or put food on the table, purchase the medications we need, or find a job to help support those we love. Sometimes people come here to Church because it’s the only home they have and they ask the Lord’s assistance to be able to move off the streets. God wants to hear these prayers. As a loving Father, he wants us to bring our needs to him. It wasn’t this that Jesus was criticizing.
BUILDING ON THE WORD | 2003
There are some things that only God can provide. Faith in God is one of them. I wish that I would be able to prove to you that God exists, that God cares for humanity, that God has a plan for our lives. But none of these beliefs can be scientifically verified. I cannot show you God’s love like I can show you that the sun is shining or that water is wet. Because the love of God is something that cannot be proven, many people in our world conclude that faith in God is not necessary or reasonable. We see Jesus dealing with issues of faith in today’s Gospel. He has just performed the tremendous miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fish and yet the crowds that saw that miracle will not accept in faith that he is the Son of God. They keep saying to him, “What signs are you going to perform so that we might see them and believe?” They want proof. But proof cannot be given. Even Jesus cannot perform a sign that would force them to believe.
THE REASON FOR OUR HOPE | 2018
We are blessed even in the midst of all the darkness that’s been going on. When I did my Holy Hour this past Friday night, in the middle of the night, I couldn’t shut the Lord out. You know I just kept okay, and I am not listening because He was like screaming at me and He kept just saying “enough, enough, enough”. And so I said “okay, enough, enough enough” and it had to do primarily with the Planned Parenthood reality. And when we listen to the second reading today, He says “you must no longer live as the Gentiles do with the cloudiness of a mind”. We need to be clear and Jesus talks about clearly we must not work for perishable things but that which is imperishable. This isn’t a political homily, don’t worry, this is a salvation homily. This is what we need to do to be saved and what we need to do to bring others to be saved. We stand up for what’s right, that’s out job, that’s why Christ was killed. He stood up and said “this is right and this is wrong”. And when Planned Parenthood sells baby parts, and they do it with our taxpayers money, a half a billion dollars a year, when are you going to get mad and just say “enough, enough”. And as I was talking on my radio program this week, I said “can you imagine if men stopped being spiritual wimps, and the men stood up and said “enough”.
SUNDAY WEB SITE | 1997
We work for food. We work hard. We get money for our work. And money? It has been known at times as “bread.” In fact, an advertisement for the Missouri lottery consecrates the miracle of winning as “our daily bread.”
We work for salvation, too. We produce, we practice virtue, we follow the rules, we do the required. Sometimes this allows us to think that we actually earn it all.
Still, we die. We perish. The things that sustain us perish with us. All of the earth goes back to the earth. All the physical bread, having once fed us, feeds the rest of the food chain. The old self, Paul reminds us, deteriorates through illusion and desire.
SUNDAY REFLECTIONS | 2021
Today’s liturgy and the Word of God present us with Jesus as the Bread of Life. Bread is a substance known and used by every society on the face of the earth. It is a gift of God to humanity adapted by the nature in order to be a source of nourishment. In the Old Testament we have to God who took care of his people by giving them food for their survival. He gave them Manna in the desert which was the type of divine bread placed before his chosen people. In the New Testament Jesus calls himself the bread of Life and tells us that those who eat him will live forever. Jesus presents himself as the person who wants to be part of us. He is what the whole world needs, he satisfies all those who partake of him, there isn’t a person on the world who can’t tolerate him, and there isn’t a person who won’t enjoy him when they meet him. He tells the disciples that he is the real bread we all need this bread that has come down from heaven and they have to believe in him. To believe in a person is to make an investment of one’s whole self. It is an act of faith, of trust and a letting go.
BREAD OF LIFEby Bishop Robert Barron . August 2, 2015
This week, the Church’s Gospel is again taken from the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John. The principle concern of this Gospel is to provide testimony to the enduring presence of Christ in the Eucharist—a presence which is the fulfillment of the ancient temple of Israel. The ark of the covenant contained the law of God and the manna from heaven, and was surrounded by the mysterious “showbread” or “bread of the presence.” Now, in the true tabernacles found in our churches, we find the living law, the true manna, and the definitive bread of the presence.
FOOD THAT WILL NEVER PERISHby Bishop Robert Barron . August 3, 2003
Another homily from Fr. Robert Barron and Word on Fire Catholic Ministries.
Friends, let us rejoice whenever the grace of God is on display. The point of the sacraments is so that God’s grace may flood the world, but the Lord can operate outside of our formal structures. He desires these gifts for us, but as the creator of them, he is never limited by them.
It is people who share what they have and of themselves who are happy. Even in this life, those who do so are blest with gratitude, love and true friends. On the other hand, those who seek only their own satisfaction, those who believe that money can buy everything including happiness, are not only unhappy but are also often lonely.
Psalm 78 begins by the psalmist speaking to the reader about the glories of God’s action in the lives of His people.It is God’s command that we make known to these things to our children so that they do might place their hope in Him and never forget what He has done for us.
As Russian Philosopher and former Marxist Nicholas Berdyaev pointed out, the social failures of Christianity were the result of being too much wrapped up in this world, not as a result of being too other-worldly. Rather, it is when people have secretly sought their kingdom of heaven here, on earth, that they began to compromise with justice, and little by little silence the voice of their own conscience, and gradually sell their soul for an earthly paradise.
Those who partake of the bread of life that makes them generous, compassionate, and loving are the people who can respond to the hungry
Suffering tends to snap us back to reality. Unless we are ridiculously stubborn, suffering typically brings us in touch with our own poverty of spirit, and then we go looking for God. And that’s the one thing God cannot resist: a contrite heart that knows its neediness, and which stands before Him helpless and seeking His help.
The only lectionary translation approved for Mass in the United States; also used in Catholic dioceses of the Philippines.
This lectionary translation is used for Mass in dioceses for the majority of the English-speaking world outside the U.S. and Canada.
The Revised Common Lectionary NRSV translation is used in Christian worshp. Text provided by Vanderbilt Divinity School.
26th Sunday of Year B
God’s Grace and Structures of the Church
God is not restricted by the institutions and structures that he himself established, and so his grace can operate even outside of the official church. (2003)
TOMORROW'S REFLECTION
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