So apparently some got the resurrected 80’s ‘New Theology’ homily today, on this Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2018, of the ‘the miracle’ of the 5000 being fed, not because Jesus ‘actually’ made five loaves of bread and two fish multiply to feed them all, but because Jesus, through His preaching, opened the hearts of those in attendance to share their knapsack lunches with each other.
What a shame since this particular miracle of Jesus must be so important as to be the only one that all four Gospel writers included in their accounts.
Don’t know what Liturgical Aids subscription it came from, don’t care, but the stereotyping of the Jewish people being ‘stingy’, especially with their own, really, really, really upset me. The Jews are known to be some of the most loving and generous people that God ever created. Maybe that’s why He decided, out of all the nations on earth at the time, to come as one of them, to make them His family.
The idea that Jesus ‘didn’t really multiply the loaves and fishes’ is wrong on so many levels but mostly because John 6:1-18 was one of Jesus’ first precursors of the Eucharist (Read all of John 6 to know this is true.) If you follow it through to it’s conclusion, the interpretation of what was once referred to as the ‘New Theology’, teaches that the Eucharist is confected by all of those gathered at Mass by their ‘sharing’ with one another and NOT by the power of the Holy Spirit in the words and actions of the Priest. The miracles of Jesus, both then and now, are reduced from Divine Action to human interaction.
What has been encouraging is hearing from so many Priests, Deacons, Seminarians, and Deacon Aspirants, that this is no longer being taught in the majority of formation programs.
We can take great comfort in that the #FakeTheology is not as widespread as it once was and we pray that it’s slow death is hastened. Do I hear an ‘Amen!’?
THE CRACKED SPINE 