Father Perry D. Leiker, pastor.
A reflection on the weekday readings, for Wednesday of the First Week of Advent, by Father Perry.
By Father Perry D. Leiker, pastor
+ Rich food and succulent drink, and abundance everywhere!
That is what will be on the mountain of the Lord.
The web of division among nations will go!
The tears from all faces — gone! All reproaches — wiped away!
The time is coming, and what a time it will be.
All will be quoted as saying, “Behold our God to whom we looked to save us! This is the Lord for whom we looked; let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us!”
And we respond with Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd.”
But joined to it is a delightful response said by all: “I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.”
Why not? Who would want to live anywhere else?
In God’s house “only goodness and kindness follow me and for all the days of my life.”
And this is realized before our eyes in Jesus the Christ.
Like a magnet, he drew so many to himself, and especially, “the lame, blind, deformed, mute, and many others.”
A messianic presence.
The messianic presence!
And he cured them; everyone looking on was amazed as he cured them.
And all glorified the God of Israel.
But wait; that was not enough!
There was more to be seen and to be experienced.
The crowd came, hungry for healing. The crowd came, hungry for teaching.
The crowd became — or at least Jesus knew it was so — hungry to eat something, lest they might collapse on the way home.
After all, they were far away in a “deserted place.”
And so he asked what was available and it turned out to be seven loaves and a “few fish.”
(Let us not even get started about the seven loaves: a rather perfect find.)
A little thanks, a little blessing, and all were full and all were satisfied.
And they picked up the fragments which filled a few baskets.
No, please!
Exactly seven were filled.
(There is that number again: complete and perfect, and in itself a reflection of these messianic times being revealed before their very eyes, ears, and hearts.)
What if this Advent, something similar happens to us?
What if our hunger and our longings, and our faith and our hope open us up to meet Christ in some new and wonderful ways?
What if we experience abundance and satisfaction, and something like the seven is revealed again and again in our lives?
Might we not experience our own experience of “living in the house of the Lord”?
And might we not experience what is declared in today’s verse before the Gospel, “Behold, the Lord comes to save his people; blessed are those prepared to meet him!”?
+ Are we prepared to meet him?
Father Perry Dean Leiker is the 13th pastor of St. Bernard Catholic Church. Reach him at (323) 255-6142. Email Father Perry at pleiker@stbernard-church.com.
[Photo by Harris Vo on Unsplash]
