Homily for Tuesday, 7 January 2014– Tuesday after Epiphany

Optional Memorial of St. Raymond of Penyafort 

Readings of the day: 1 John 4:7-10; Psalm 72:1-2, 3-4, 7-8; Mark 6:34-44

Does anyone here recall which important feast day we just celebrated this past Sunday? It was the feast of the Epiphany of the Lord. We are familiar with the story of the Epiphany, the encounter of the newborn Christ with the magi. “Epiphany” means a “showing forth.” This past Sunday, we celebrated the Son of God’s first showing forth to the world.

But there are several examples of epiphany moments in our Gospels, let alone in our own lives. We hear of one of these epiphany moments in today’s Gospel reading.

Many of us might question how the feeding of the five thousand can be interpreted as an epiphany moment. Is it not primarily an account one of Jesus’ many miracles of which we hear in the Gospels? The feeding of the great crowd from only “five loaves and two fish” is indeed a miracle, but Mark’s imagery of this incident suggests not only a miracle, but an epiphany; a showing forth of God in the world.

Mark uses the imagery of a shepherd who takes pity on the crowd. This event takes place in “a deserted place.” The number of people, the quantity of food, their organization “by hundreds and by fifties,” and Jesus’ “taking… blessing,” breaking, and giving the bread and fish to the people recall a Jewish banquet scene in Jesus’ time. These images would also have been connected with the feeding of the Israelites with manna in the desert when Moses led them from Egypt.  

Jesus’ feeding of the multitudes shows forth Jesus as the Messiah; as a new Moses who loves, shepherds, delivers, and feeds us, God’s people; as God’s Son who shows forth to us the kingdom of God on earth, a kingdom in which all are welcomed, loved, and fed.

We may, rightly, think of events like the feeding of the five thousand as miracles, but not immediately as epiphany moments. More significantly, though, how often do we miss epiphany moments in our own everyday lives; ordinary events through which God is shown forth to us?

I think of how often I have been asked: “When did you know you were being called to be a Basilian; a priest?” God has called me through so many small moments that I struggle to pinpoint a specific “epiphany” in which my vocation became clear to me. I wonder if those of you who are married, who are in religious orders, or who are single share this struggle to identify one epiphany moment in your lives; a moment when your vocation became clear to you. Epiphany moments can become so ordinary that we miss them.

And so we come to another epiphany moment, in which we take, bless, break, and give ordinary bread, just as Jesus once did for the multitudes in Galilee. Only this bread and wine of which we are about to partake will have become Christ’s body and blood; our Eucharist.

Surely this is a miracle, but how often have we thought of the Eucharist as an epiphany moment? In this gift of the Eucharist, God is shown forth to us, and we are all welcomed, loved, and fed.