Don’t Pray - Act: The Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024

                                                              Don’t Pray - Act:

The Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024 

July 28, 2024

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2 Kings 4:42-44; Psalm 145; Ephesians 4:1-6; John 6:1-15

 

Jesus continues to reveal that he is the Good Shepherd who will rightly nourish those who come to him. He makes the people recline in fields of grass reminiscent of the shepherd in Psalm 23 and the prophet Elisha in the first reading. Paul portrays Jesus as the one who preserves unity through his right action because all that is does points to God the Father, the Parent, the one who is all in all.

 

In both the first reading and the Gospel, it is not enough just to have good thoughts and kind wishes. Those thoughts must be translated into positive action. In other words, we can’t just pray. We must act. Having positive thoughts is essential for right action because we first are moved to feeling and thinking. We must remember that making judgments is essential, and we are not to be closed or trapped in those judgments because we must remain open. We make conclusive judgments when we do not choose to think anymore. Therefore, our first thoughts are essential. From those thoughts come our attitudes, and they are followed by words, and words are followed by actions. Before we get in the trap of judgment making, we must make certain that we remain open to new, creative thinking.

 

Jesus pushed the disciples to think and act creatively. At first, they only saw a dead end with no solution to their problems. Jesus asked them to look for a starting point. They discovered they had something and from that, they could build new possibilities. Peter’s brother, Andrew, noticed they had five loaves of bread and two fish. It certainly not enough to feed the crowds, but it was a start, and new beginnings need a starting point. Jesus pushed them to act. It is not enough to just have compassion and to say a few prayers; it is to be followed by action. That is proof of the prayer.

 

Jesus prepared them for daily life by teaching them that they had to use their resources. Daily food was precious in Jesus’s time and many people risked their livelihood by leaving their lands to hear the message of Jesus. A day away from the crops could mean the loss of food for the family. This was a paycheck-to-paycheck existence. Many of the biblical countrypersons lived day by day working the land hard and living off of it dependently. Jesus knew that there was no wasting of that which sustains life, and what comes from God is to be revered.

 

Prayer and its resultant action become about the faithfulness of God. Prayer does not only function to put a person’s spiritual lives back into order and give them an inner focus. It is only when people relate to God, speak to God, that a real relationship develops. We relate to God in the way we would another person, and we become authentically human when God gazes upon us. Jesus was leading the people to a deeper relationship. I’m sure when the disciples finished distributing the meal that Jesus gazed upon them with deep satisfaction. They ministered well, and he looked upon them with joy. We only become utterly human when someone looks at us with joy, in a loving gaze, that we become more of who we are. The nourishing act of Jesus points to the living presence of God among the people, and those who were fed came to know the nourishing generosity of God. The people came to know for certain that God was in their midst.

 

When we come to the altar, it is important for us to realize how God feeds us as a community. We often see the love of God lived out in the action of others. We know the world still suffers greatly and hungers for God, and God is still calling us to act, to be creative, to see what happens when we try a new way, to go above and beyond our comfort zone, because in the midst of that we will find the same generous God who wants us to eat our fill and give what we have to our brothers and sisters. We will find a God who acts through our actions and will surprise us with God’s abundance. We then begin to trust that God, if we let it happen, will spoil us with abundance and goodness. 

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

Monday: (Jeremiah 13) Go buy yourself a linen loincloth; wear it on your loins, but do not put it in water. I bought the loincloth, as the LORD commanded, and put it on. A second time the word of the LORD came to me thus: Take the loincloth which you bought and are wearing and go now to the Parath; there hide it in a cleft of the rock.

 

Tuesday: (Jeremiah 14) Let my eyes stream with tears day and night, without rest, Over the great destruction which overwhelms the virgin daughter of my people, over her incurable wound.

 

Wednesday: (Jeremiah 15) When I found your words, I devoured them; they became my joy and the happiness of my heart, Because I bore your name, O LORD, God of hosts. I did not sit celebrating in the circle of merrymakers; Under the weight of your hand I sat alone because you filled me with indignation.

 

Thursday: (Jeremiah 18) Rise up, be off to the potter’s house; there I will give you my message. I went down to the potter’s house and there he was, working at the wheel.
Whenever the object of clay which he was making turned out badly in his hand,  he tried again, making of the clay another object of whatever sort he pleased.

 

Friday (Jeremiah 26) Stand in the court of the house of the LORD and speak to the people of all the cities of Judah who come to worship in the house of the LORD; whatever I command you, tell them, and omit nothing. Perhaps they will listen and turn back, each from his evil way.

 

Saturday (Jeremiah 26) Thereupon the princes and all the people said to the priests and the prophets, “This man does not deserve death; it is in the name of the LORD, our God, that he speaks to us.” 

 

Gospel: 

Monday: (John 11) Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother [Lazarus, who had died]. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming,
she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home.

 

Tuesday: (Matthew 13) "Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field." He said in reply, "He who sows good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world, the good seed the children of the Kingdom. The weeds are the children of the Evil One, and the enemy who sows them is the Devil.

 

Wednesday (Matthew 13) The Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls.

 

Thursday (Matthew 20) The Kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind. When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets. What is bad they throw away. Thus, it will be at the end of the age.

 

Friday (Matthew 13) Where did this man get such wisdom and mighty deeds? Is he not the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother named Mary and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? Are not his sisters all with us? Where did this man get all this?”

 

Saturday (Matthew 14) Herod the tetrarch heard of the reputation of Jesus and said to his servants, “This man is John the Baptist. He has been raised from the dead; that is why mighty powers are at work in him.”

 

Saints of the Week

 

July 29: Martha (1st century), is the sister of Mary and Lazarus of Bethany near Jerusalem. Martha is considered the busy, activity-attentive sister while Mary is more contemplative. Martha is known for her hospitality and fidelity. She proclaimed her belief that Jesus was the Christ when he appeared after Lazarus had died. 

 

July 30: Peter Chrysologus, bishop and doctor (406-450), was the archbishop of Ravenna, Italy in the 5th century when the faithful became lax and adopted pagan practices. He revived the faith through his preaching. He was titled Chrysologus because of his 'golden words.'

 

July 31: Ignatius of Loyola, priest (1491-1556), is one of the founders of the Jesuits and the author of the Spiritual Exercises. As a Basque nobleman, he was wounded in a battle at Pamplona in northeastern Spain and convalesced at his castle where he realized he followed a methodology of discernment of spirits. When he recovered, he ministered to the sick and dying and then retreated to a cave at Manresa, Spain where he had experiences that formed the basis of The Spiritual Exercises. In order to preach, he studied Latin, earned a Master’s Degree at the University of Paris, and then gathered other students to serve Jesus. Francis Xavier and Peter Faber were his first friends. After ordination, Ignatius and his nine friends went to Rome where they formally became the Society of Jesus. Most Jesuits were sent on mission, but Ignatius stayed in Rome directing the rapidly growing religious order, composing its constitutions, and perfecting the Spiritual Exercises. He died in 1556 and the Jesuit Order was already 1,000 men strong. 

 

August 1: Alphonsus Liguori, bishop and doctor(1696-1787), founded a band of mission priests that became the Redemptorists. He wrote a book called "Moral Theology" that linked legal aspects with kindness and compassion for others. He became known for his responsive and thoughtful way of dealing with confessions.

 

August 2: Peter Faber, S.J., priest and founder (1506-1546), was one of the original companions of the Society of Jesus. He was a French theologian and the first Jesuit priest and was the presider over the first vows of the lay companions. He became known for directing the Spiritual Exercises very well. He was called to the Council of Trent but died as the participants were gathering.

 

August 2: Eusebius of Vercelli, bishop (d. 371), was ordained bishop after becoming a lector. He attended a council in Milan where he opposed the Arians. The emperor exiled him to Palestine because he contradicted secular influences. He returned to his diocese where the emperor died.

 

August 2: Peter Julian Eymard, priest (1811-1868) left the Oblates when he became ill. When his father died, he became a priest and soon transferred into the Marists but left them to found the Blessed Sacrament Fathers to promote the significance of the Eucharist.

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• July 28, 1564. In a consistory held before twenty-four Cardinals, Pope Paul IV announced his intention of entrusting the Roman Seminary to the Society. 
• July 29, 1865. The death in Cincinnati, Ohio of Fr. Peter Arnoudt, a Belgian. He was the author of The Imitation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 
• July 30, 1556. As he lay near death, Ignatius asked Juan de Polanco to go and obtain for him the blessing of the pope. 
• July 31, 1556. The death in Rome of Ignatius Loyola. 
• August 1, 1938. The Jesuits of the Middle United States, by Gilbert Garrigan was copyrighted. This monumental three-volume work followed the history of the Jesuits in the Midwest from the early 1820s to the 1930s. 
• August 2, 1981. The death of Gerald Kelly, moral theologian and author of "Modern Youth and Chastity." 
• August 3, 1553. Queen Mary Tudor made her solemn entrance into London. As she passed St Paul's School, Edmund Campion, then a boy of thirteen delivered an address.