The Lord shall provide for us a banquet of rich food

Ish 25:6-10, Mt. 15:29-37. In today's first reading, the prophet envisions a shining mountain where the Lord invites all to people to join in a great banquet. There will good company, rich food and fine wines and all mourning, sadness and shame will be removed. Even death itself will be destroyed. Isaiah had great feeling of hope for the future, when the Messiah would bring in God’s new age and the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food. This vision lifts us beyond the world as we know it towards another world where all is as God wants it to be. For the early Christians, this vision must have seemed on the verge of fulfilment in the work of Jesus and especially in His miracles of feeding the people.

Today’s Gospel tells of the feeding of hungry people. This is what happens to everyone who “goes up the mountain” to be with the Lord. There is a transfiguration that happens on the mountain. The Lord wipes away tears from their face and takes away their humiliation before people. The hand of the Lord rests on them. We are all aware of the obscenity of people for whom there has been no miraculous feeding, dying of starvation in our modern, affluent world. Let us go up to the mountain of the Lord that He may feed us, heal us and rest his hand on us. Sometimes, of course, there are moments of humane solidarity, when people know that, with good will, we could feed the world. Whatever we give at times like that resembles the loaves and fishes. When people share food and resources with strangers, they recognize our interdependence on one another.

May the Lord who stands with us on the holy mountain, help us to find Him in the poor and the troubled! Amen!! Good morning, It is well with you!!!