28th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cycle A
October 15, 2017
Saint Mary
Parish, Pylesville 4:00pm and 8:00
AM
Saint Matthew
Parish, Baltimore 11:00 AM
Food, Glorious Food
Maybe I
am dating myself a little bit here, but today I am remembering a play and movie
called Oliver.
Do any
of you remember this? Oliver originally came out as a play in
1960.
It is
based on the classic novel Oliver Twist that
was written by Charles Dickens – one of the books I had to read when I was in
high school. One of the really popular
songs in the show is titled Food,
Glorious Food.
It
starts like this: “Food, glorious food,
we’re anxious to try it. Three banquets
a day, our favorite diet…” and on it goes.
In the
story, Oliver Twist and other young boys are at a workhouse orphanage in London
in the the early 1800’s. The living and
working conditions for these boys are very meagre and very hard.
For
them, it can be hard even to get enough to eat and that’s why they sing of Food, Glorious Food. But for them, food is also a metaphor or
symbol of deeper things that they hunger for – a home, a family, security, and some
hope for the future.
Food in Scripture
Today’s
Scripture readings also focus on food.
In the first
reading, the prophet Isaiah says that “the
Lord will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines.” In the gospel, Jesus compares the kingdom
of God to a “wedding banquet.”
So,
here in the Scripture, as in the show Oliver,
food is not just a physical necessity of life.
It is also a metaphor and it points to God satisfying deeper hungers
that are within each one of us.
The Food of Eucharist
I see these food images
in today’s readings as pointing to the Eucharist.
The Eucharist is
Jesus – real spiritual food. And, as
spiritual food, it is also a kind of metaphor and it speaks of acceptance and
belonging, of being loved and of loving, and of meaning and purpose.
The Eucharist
touches these more profound hungers. It
gets to the very heart of what we hunger for deep down within ourselves and
that is why receiving the Eucharist is so important for us and so many others.
Source and Summit
Our Church
describes the Eucharist as the source and summit of our lives.
I like those words
– the source and summit of our lives. Let’s
think of it this way.
On Monday morning,
after being here for Mass on the weekend, we may experience the Eucharist as
the source of our lives. It may empower
us to deal with a job that we dislike or with the demanding routine of everyday
life.
The Eucharist may
strengthen us to deal with stress in relating to your children or with
loneliness after the death of your husband or wife. The Eucharist can be a source of life in ways
like these if we remain aware of its power and open ourselves to it.
And then, the
Eucharist can also be the summit of life for us. What I mean is that when Friday and Saturday
come around, we can look forward to the Eucharist to refresh us with renewed vision
and meaning for the present moment of our lives.
And we can also find
it giving us hope for the future, even to the point of being a taste of the
heavenly banquet – the banquet we hope to enjoy in heaven some day. So again, the Eucharist can be this summit or
high point of life if we remain aware of its power and open ourselves to it.
Conclusion
As Oliver Twist
and his friends say, this is Food,
Glorious Food.
The Eucharist is
Jesus, real spiritual food and in that way it is also a kind of metaphor –
nourishing those deeper hungers that we all have within us. It can be the source and summit of our lives.
