Today’s The Weekly Word is a special edition that contains the video and transcription of Father Peter’s homily at his last Mass on August 4, 2024 before his passing a few days later. We hope you find inspiration from his final words. Click here to watch the video or read the transcription below.
By: Father Peter Gyves, SJ, MD
I mentioned at the beginning of Mass, these readings are powerful and as I usually speak, I’d like to talk about the Scriptures themselves to provide a context. And then secondly, what do they really mean for us today? And thirdly, where does it leave us?
We say we’re Christians and where does it leave us to follow this bread of life? And so, the readings, the first reading from Exodus goes back centuries, and it’s really the story of the people, of the Jewish people leaving Egypt and finding the promised land.
The journey is roughly 40 years before they get there. There are trials and tribulations along the way. And the story that they’re referring to now is the Jewish people. And this is true of any people. But in the story we’re reading today, the Jewish people, there’s always this lack of faith. You know, you said you were going to bring us out of the promised land. We’re 40 years travelling through the desert. When does it end? Where are you?
And we often ask ourselves in times of distress, where are you in the midst of all of that is happening? And what we hear is that God provides. And I looked this up. I didn’t know this, but the matter comes down to this. There is a bush in the desert that insects will attack and take the sap from and they’ll release it into the air. And as it settles, it dries out, and it’s highly rich in carbohydrates. So, while not technically bread, it is full of carbohydrates like bread, and it can sustain somebody in a journey through the desert. So it’s a real event probably that did happen, that the Jewish people did not know of this. They’re in their journey and God has provided for them in a real sense that we can believe.
And I just mentioned briefly the second reading. Paul never knew Jesus. He is writing to the Ephesian community and what he’s really telling them then is his experience is not of Jesus of history, but the Jesus, the risen Christ of faith that he met on the road to Damascus. And it changed his life. He decided that he would now live as a new human being in a new world order. And that’s his mission. He went out after people saying you’re no longer pagans. Paul reached out to the Gentile community, but he’s telling them now you’re not pagans. You have been saved by this Jesus Christ, and you’re really asked to live in a new way as new human beings. The old way is no good.
The old way was for many of the Jewish people, as they moved into Canaan, the promised land, they began to marry into Canaanite culture, a Pagan culture, which really took them out of their devotion to Yahweh, the Jewish God. And then Paul is really saying, no, this is all wrong. You have a God who is with you, is guiding you, walking with you, and do not betray him. Live by the presence of that God in your life.
And in our gospel reading we hear the same take prior to the reading I just read. Jesus has just fed 5000 people or so the gospel story will tell us. And now he has taken off with his apostles for some rest to try and get away from the bustling crowd. But they see he’s gone, and they go after him in boats that find him. And when they find him, they want to know where are we going to get more food. Where are you going to feed us?
And he really makes this distinction that you people are looking for temporal food. You had manna in the desert, temporal food. You’re looking for the 5000 that I fed temporal food. But he said there’s a food that is much, much richer and that lasts into eternity. And that’s where you see in John’s Gospel, Jesus probably said none of this. John’s Gospel is written about 170 years after Jesus lived upon this earth. But what we have in John’s gospel is a highly theologized understanding of who Jesus was, more than the so-called synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke where they take the life of Jesus as it unfolded.
John is beyond that. He’s saying this Jesus lives for all eternity, and he is now looking back at us. And Jesus has made this identification with his own life as being the bread of life, eternal life. And he’s saying those who come to me will not be hungry, they will have their feed. And so, he’s asking them to trust, which they don’t do, which we don’t do.
We continue to question where is God’s presence when things get difficult. But I learned once from a spiritual advisor that if you look back at your own life 20 years ago, you might have been saying the same thing, Where’s God in my life? But 20 years later, you look back and you say, yes, now I know God was there walking with me, moving me from point A to point B.
And the point is that this God’s never going to walk away in times of joy, in times of sorrow, this God is walking with us, offering us the way that Paul talked about a new way of living as new human beings in a new world order, so that we might know the eternal life, the eternal bread that Jesus has identified with.
So that’s the Scriptures. Where does it leave us? I think for us today there’s always the tendency, there is an expression in Latin America of the so-called religionists evasion of the gospel stories. We hear the gospel stories every Sunday. Occasionally they talk about Jesus in the temple, but most times Jesus is in society, healing people, the blind, the deaf, the leper, the people without enough food, taking care of them.
And on top of that, speaking truth to power, telling the powerful of his day that the way the world is working is not fair and that there will be a judgement upon it. And so, if we believe that Jesus is the second person of the triune God that Christians believe, it becomes very important that we pay attention to the gospel stories on Sunday. Because in telling us something about Jesus’s life, they’re telling us something about the unseen God we all hope to see one day.
And what we find from Jesus’s life, if God is anything, God is love, eternal love. A love that knows no bounds. A love that forgives over and over again.
Despite our inability to accept God’s presence in our life when times get tough, this God is also a God of incredible compassion. The compassion in the gospel stories is not intellectual. It’s not that I see a poor person, I see someone suffering, and I feel bad about that, and maybe I’ll put $20 in the basket on Sunday to help them. It’s all good. But that’s not the compassion that Jesus is talking about.
The compassion Jesus is talking about is guttural. It’s that you see these people who are suffering, and you say deep down inside ‘I’m sick to my stomach. I cannot accept what I see.’ And it is from that compassion that Jesus acted.
His love was for people regardless of race, religion, the color of their skin, sexual orientation. His compassion moved him from that sense of love to action on behalf of the values of the Kingdom of God that he preached. He didn’t preach dogma, he preached values, love, compassion, justice for all people.
And so, my third point then is where does it leave us?
It is one thing to say we are Christians. It is one thing to say I believe in all the dogma, and you can’t be a Christian if you don’t believe in the dogma. But that’s the first step. The next step towards fulfilment of our lives on this earth is to identify with Jesus’s life and to live as he lived in this world, incarnating his love, being compassionate where there is human suffering and refusing to accept the status quo.
Where some at the top do extremely well, but so many people at the bottom suffer and die long before they should because of lack of access to healthcare, education, opportunity. All the things I’ve had in my life, and I suspect things that most of you have had, we are called beyond ourselves.
God’s love is a divine love. It cannot be hoarded. You can’t say I have it. I feel really good, I hope you have it, but my main concern is me. That’s not God’s love. Divine love will move us beyond ourselves. That’s what happened to Jesus. He moved beyond himself into the suffering of 1st century Jewish Palestine to help people in need and to speak truth to power. And it is the latter that got him killed because the powerful do not want change.
And as Christians, if we identify with Jesus’s life, we are called to stand up and say no. There is a new way of living as Christians, as new human beings in a new world order. And I guarantee you, because Jesus has told us there will be pushback, there will be people who tell you, I don’t like what you’re doing. It’s too political. It’s too political. It was too political for Jesus. All he’s saying is that there’s a new world order out there that we’re being called to, and we’re being challenged to have the courage to do so.
I’ll say more about it, something about this at the end of Mass. But I think for us today, as we move forward through the next week and two, is to step back and to ask the real question of what does it mean to be a Christian? Is it solely just dogmatic expression and ritual participation? That is all good, there’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s not the end.
The end is really action on behalf of God’s people.