Are You Moved With Pity?

Homily For The 18th Sunday In The Ordinary Time Of The Year (A). August 6, 2023.

Sunday Readings

“Religion has nothing to do with compassion; it is our love for God that is the main thing because we have all been created for the sole purpose to love and be loved”. –St. Mother Teresa

My dearest friends in Christ,

We have gathered once again to feed on the banquet of God’s eternal word. God freely offers us His life-changing food at no cost. You may have been wasting your money on what does not satisfy you. Today God invites you to come and eat and drink without cost.

I have observed that many spend a lot going for counseling and yet do not appear to show any reasonable improvements because they refuse the counsel of God. The homilies in the Church are a great source of counseling for every Christian soul who is open to embracing God’s word. It produces the needed transformation when we are open to it and it comes at no charge.

Today’s readings, my dearest friends, especially the first and the gospel, remind us of God’s generosity and compassion which we ought to imitate as Christian virtues.

The first reading taken from Isaiah 55, was God’s invitation to us to come and eat without cost. This invitation is fulfilled in the Eucharistic Banquet in which Christ offers Himself( flesh and blood) as nourishing food for our souls. We often do not appreciate this act of God’s generous self-giving because it was given freely. He paid our debts with His Body on the Cross and invites us to come and partake freely. Many would say that free things often do not have value, but that is not so with God’s gift. In Christ, salvation is free. Grace is freely given. The sacraments are free. I know many would say that the Church charges money for the reception of the sacraments, but that would be a mistaken idea because what you give to the Church is merely a token of appreciation for what God has given and not a payment for what you are receiving. I have never seen any priest refusing anyone sacraments on monetary grounds. God’s gift to us is totally free. We cannot pay for the Life He has given, nor are we able to repay Him for His blessings to us.

Gratitude to God, who has given us everything at no cost, often produces generosity in our hearts toward others. It also produces the fruit of compassion or pity towards those who are suffering or in sorrow.

In the Gospel, we saw Christ demonstrate His compassion to the hungry crowds by feeding and healing them. The Gospel says: “…when Christ disembarked and saw the vast crowd, His heart was moved with pity for them…” The word pity as used here does not have a negative connotation. People often mock others by saying, “I pity your poor life.” This idea of pity is completely denigrating and unsympathetic. Christ’s pity is another way of saying He had compassion for the crowd as the translation would have it. Meanwhile, in Webster’s dictionary, the first definition of pity is sympathetic sorrow for one suffering, distressed or unhappy. So here we are saying that Christ was sorrowful for the hungry crowd who had been with Him all day. His pity springs from His sensitivity that these people must be hungry having stayed all day at a place where there are no shops nor food to buy within sight. I have often said that sensitivity to the needs of others is the greatest act of generosity of the heart. I have heard people tell me, “Oh, I know you must be going through hard times as a student. Just keep doing your best. Someday soon it shall be well with you”. Wao that’s more than money or any material gift. It means everything. It means the person cares and is sensitive to my situation.

Greediness and selfishness are often the greatest vices that blind the soul from being sensitive or having compassion for the needs or suffering of others. Because our hearts are filled with greed, many are hungry, many are poor and many are dying. Were our leaders sensitive and compassionate to the needs of their people, the world would have been a paradise?

As the disciple complained, we often complain of insufficient resources: “Five loaves and two fishes are all we have here..” They simply stated the obvious. All we have, in this context, means there is nothing more left. Perhaps that was the only food left to be shared among themselves. “If they had remembered the miracle of the wine in Cana (John 2:1-11), they would have asked Jesus to meet the need, rather than to send the people away.” –Carson

Where we humans see limitation or insufficiency God sees an opportunity and sufficiency. All we need to do is to hand over to Him the little we have. Jesus’ response to His disciples was, “There is no need to send them away, give them food yourself.” With this, Jesus challenged both the compassion and the faith of the disciples. He is challenging our faith too, by asking us all to feed the hungry and help the poor around us.

Giving others the little we have often means a lot more to others than we could ever imagine. A priest friend once told me a story of a man who traveled miles to beg for alms in his parish in Nigeria. The man used the last monies he had to pay for transportation down to the parish. The priests were his last hope. He met with the priest and narrated what brought him to the parish. According to the priest, the man’s problem was beyond his financial capacity to solve, but rather than dismiss him empty-handed, he offered him the little he could afford. That little meant so much to the man who on receiving the money, responded in gratitude, “Thanks Father, at least I can transport myself back home for I have nothing left on me.” Who could have imagined that he used all the money he had to go to see the priest? What do you think would have happened if the priest had dismissed him on the grounds that his problems were more than he could solve or that he didn’t have the kind of money he was requesting? So you can see that the little you give often makes a difference. That little is what God wants. Is this not the reason the Word of God encourages, “Give to the one who begs from you and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.” (cf. Mathew 5:42). I have always encouraged people not to say an outright no to anyone who asks for help. A kind word and a generous little gift could bring some solace to anyone in need even if they have to live with their problems afterward. If you have more give more.

By feeding the 5000, excluding women and children, Jesus has taught us not to send anyone away. This tells us how God can multiply our faith through our little Christian acts of kindness and generosity. In multiplying the loaves and fishes Jesus multiplied the faith of His disciples.

So, stop complaining you haven’t enough to share because you can never have enough in this life. If you wait until you have enough, then you would probably spend the rest of your life not helping anyone.

They all ate and were filled. Not only was God’s provision abundant, but God also did not want the leftovers to go to waste. Therefore they took measures to preserve what was left over. They collected twelve baskets full of the fragments that remained. There is so much waste in America and around the world. Let us not waste God’s resources. “God’s generous giving and our wise using must go hand in hand.” –Barclay

The prominence of this story, recorded in all four gospels, shows that both the Holy Spirit and the early Church thought this story was important as more than an example of the miraculous power of Jesus.

May earthly desires, greed, selfishness, nor even hunger separate us from the love of God and from each other. May God use you today to perform a miracle of multiplying joy and not sorrow; of multiplying food and not hunger; of multiplying love and not hate; of multiplying faith and not unbelief. Amen