18th Week, Monday, August 4; St. John Vianney
Numbers 11:4-15 / Matthew 14:13-21
Moses prays to God; "1 can't carry this burden any longer.
A woman had a heavy cross to carry in this life. One day she went to St. Peter and said, "I can't carry this heavy cross any longer." Peter looked at the cross and said, "It's possible someone made a mistake. What's the serial number of your cross?" The woman said, "002003." Peter wrote the number in a book and said, "Put the cross over there and see if you can find another that fits you better." Two hours later the woman returned to Peter. With a big smile on her face she said, "I think I've found just the right one." "Good!" said St. Peter. "What's the serial number?" The woman said, "Let's see. It says 002003." Peter said, "Why, that's the same one you came in with!"
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Do we believe God knows what's best for us? Recall these words of God to Paul: "My grace is sufficient for you." 2 Corinthians 12:9
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The first reading in the 18th and the 19th weeks is taken from the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy. It describes the journey of God’s people through the desert, with the trials of the difficult journey, the temptations of discouragement, lack of faith and trust, material and materialistic needs, infidelities, complaints. We have to learn to place them in the context of our own itinerary through life as Christians, our own deserts with temptations, difficulties and grumbling.
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We know that an immense number of people in many places of the world have not enough to eat today. Many others have plenty to eat, and yet they are hungry, for people do not live on bread alone: they are in need of peace and love, they hunger for justice and appreciation; they are in need of God. We, Jesus’ disciples today, cannot remain indifferent to these hungers, for Jesus has told us: “Give them something to eat yourselves.” If we share the little that we have, the kingdom of God is among us.
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We often hear this phrase: A hungry person is an angry person. Quite true, hunger has that ability to diminish our rationale and even contort our spirituality, so much so that we can even end up doing something crazy and stupid. But being grumpy is another story altogether. We can be grumpy not because we are hungry, but because we are fussy.
In the 1st reading, we heard how the Israelites began to be grumpy, not because they were hungry but because they were tired of eating manna, day in day out. And their complaints burdened Moses to the extent that he in turn complained to the Lord. But what Moses felt about the people's complaints was a much lesser intensity about how Jesus felt over the execution of John the Baptist.
For Jesus, it was a personal tragedy, it was a time to drop everything and spend some time in great grief. But when people came to Him with their needs, He put aside His grief and even took pity on them and healed their sick.
Moses was burdened by the people's complaints. Jesus was grieved over the death of John the Baptist. We have experienced both kinds of situations before.
How did we react before? And how would we react in the future? We can continue to complain about our burdens and be grumpy about things that didn't go right. Or like Jesus, we will trust in God's grace to turn burdens into blessings, and help others to do likewise.
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Prayer
God, our compassionate Father, you let your Son Jesus Christ give food to all who are hungry in any way. Make us compassionate for all the poor of our day. Teach us to see their needs, to suffer with them, to share in their anguish, to bind their wounds and to appease their hungers. Give us the strength to do all this by the strength of the food of himself that Jesus gives us in each eucharist. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen
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Saint John Vianney
Feast day August 4
In 1805, John Vianney entered a seminary at age 19. After several months of study, he was still not prepared to attend lectures in Latin. He went to live with a friend who was a priest and who tutored him. This priest persuaded the bishop to ordain John not for his learning but for his holiness. After a few years, John was assigned to Ars, a village of about 50 families in France.
The people were careless about practicing their faith, so they were not happy with this priest who was eager to draw them back to God and Christian living. Some caused trouble by lying about John, by acting violently against him, and by refusing to cooperate with him. They hoped that he would give up and leave. Instead, Father Vianney increased his prayers, fasting, and penances.
Gradually, people came to celebrate the sacraments and listen to his homilies. Within a few years, Father Vianney was spending 10–15 hours a day in the confessional. People from all over France and other countries came to consult him. The government built a railroad line to Ars to accommodate all the pilgrims. Father Vianney just continued his hard, yet simple, way of prayer, fasting, and penance. He was strict with his parishioners but a hundred times more strict with himself. John gave away his furnishings, his belongings, and the gifts of clothes and food that the neighbours brought him. Once he received a black velvet cape as an award and sold it to buy food for those who were poor. He died at age 73. John was canonized in 1925 and is the patron of parish priests.
