A Word for the Eighth Sunday After Pentecost (12)

Today, beloved brothers and sisters, is our eighth Sunday, that is, the eighth Sunday after Pentecost, or Trinity Day, from which a separate count of Sundays begins, with a special order of service using the Octoechos, or Book of the Eight Tones, of St. John of Damascus. On this Sunday it is appointed to read the Gospel from Matthew, of Jesus Christ’s healing of the sick in the wilderness of Bethsaida, and of His feeding of five thousand people, not counting women and children, with five barley loaves and two fish. The Gospel reads thus, in the Russian tongue: «at that time Jesus, seeing a great multitude, was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick. Now when evening had come, His disciples came to Him and said: this is a deserted place, and the hour is already late; send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food. But Jesus said to them: they need not go away; you give them something to eat. And they said to Him: we have here only five loaves and two fish. He told them: bring them here to Me. And He commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass. And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke, and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples to the multitudes. So they all ate and were filled, and they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments that remained; and those who had eaten were about five thousand men, besides women and children. Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, while He sent the multitudes away» (Mt 14:14-22). Here the Gospel reading ends.

An abyss of miracles, an abyss of mercies to people, did the Lord Jesus Christ work in the days of His earthly life: now He wondrously healed various sick people—those with fever, the paralyzed, lepers, lunatics; now the deaf, the blind, the lame, the crippled, the withered; now He delivered the demon-possessed from evil demons; now He fed the hungry by the wondrous multiplication of bread and fish; now He raised the dead; in short, the Lord worked so many beneficent signs, or miracles, that, as the holy Evangelist John the Theologian says, if they were told one by one, the whole world could not contain the books that would be written of them (Jn 21:25). These miracles, worked by an authoritative Word, showed in Him, to the point of plain evidence, the almighty, all-good, and all-wise God, the Creator of creation, manifested in the world in the flesh. And only the envious and malicious scribes and Pharisees, the elders and chief priests, in their stubbornness, would not believe in Him as the almighty God, Creator, Provider, and Savior.

We know Him, and believe in Him, because we too were born of Christian parents, and were reborn in the Christian font of baptism, and were brought up in the rules and precepts of the Christian faith, and are fed and quickened by the heavenly bread, which is the flesh of Christ our God, and by His blood, which flowed from His side.

Let us be thankful to our Savior for these priceless gifts, and be strengthened in faith, hope, and love for Him, and in mutual love. The Lord Jesus Christ is the same today as He who once lived and walked upon the earth and worked countless miracles—only now He does not walk visibly upon the earth, as He did then, but sits, in divine glory, upon the throne of the Godhead, governing the whole world and filling all things with Himself. And even now He heals every sickness by His all-powerful grace, through a prayer of faith—especially in the Mystery of Holy Unction—or by the natural order, through medical means, or without them, by the healing power of nature alone; and even now He feeds every creature, bringing forth in abundance every fruit of the earth; and even now He causes bread to grow and multiply, in the fields and in the granaries—though, for our sins, and our various disorders and irregularities of life, He sometimes, and especially now, withholds His bounty, and does not bring forth grain seed in sufficient abundance for men, or grass for cattle. Let us amend ourselves, and unceasingly remember and love our Creator and Provider, the Physician of soul and body, and the Feeder of every creature, keeping His commandments. From the scarcity of grain seed, bread has become dear, and for many poor people life has now become extremely hard, and in many places people endure real famine. Let us strive to bear one another’s burdens, each according to his own strength, and to give bread to the hungry; for it is on account of the scarcity of love among people, and the increase of hardness of heart and other sins, that the Lord brings about a scarcity of fruits. Let us earnestly pray Him for an abundance of the fruits of the earth, while we ourselves take care to abound in every good work—sincere love for one another, sincere goodwill toward every person, simplicity and purity of morals, meekness and humility, freedom from malice, forbearance and patience toward one another, self-restraint, sincere piety and heartfelt participation in divine worship, diligence, uprightness, honesty and faithfulness in trade and in all our words and deeds, as befits Christians, called to righteousness and truth. When our life abounds and is adorned with Christian virtues, then the earth too will abound with every fruit for our food and enjoyment; but otherwise, if we do not amend ourselves and our sins multiply, then the produce of the earth will grow scarcer still, and the cost of living will increase.

So once spoke the Lord to the Jews, whose lawless deeds and injustices He exposed through the Prophet Amos: for your sins, «I have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places; yet you have not returned to Me, says the Lord. I also withheld rain from you, when there were still three months to the harvest; I made it rain on one city, and withheld rain from another city; one piece of land was rained upon, and the piece not rained upon withered» (Am 4:6-7). «I struck you with blight and mildew; a great number of your gardens and your vineyards, your fig trees and your olive trees, the caterpillar devoured—yet in all this you did not return to Me, says the Lord» (Am 4:9).

«Now, therefore, set your heart on your ways, from this day forward…» (Hag 2:18). «One would go to a heap expecting twenty measures, but there would be only ten» (Hag 2:16), says the Lord through another Prophet. So too, even now, the Lord diminishes the fruits of the fields for our sins.

In our own time the same thing is happening, only we must add that the plundering of others’ goods, greed, and card-playing have taken hold of the hearts of our city-dwellers.

But it is time to bring this word to a close. With what, then, shall we conclude it? With those words which the Lord spoke to certain of the Jews, who were eating of the wondrously multiplied loaves and fish: «labor not for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you» (Jn 6:27). «I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst…» (Jn 6:35). «I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world» (Jn 6:51). «…unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him» (Jn 6:53-56). «This is the bread which came down from heaven» (Jn 6:58). And He, let me add, is here, upon the Holy Table, offered sacramentally every day. Let us, then, prepare ourselves to receive this heavenly, life-giving bread—take, eat, and drink, all of you, of this cup, for this is the Blood of the New Testament, shed for you and for many, for the remission of sins. Amen.