St Ignatius Parish

18^th Sunday of Ordinary Time ~ 3 August 2008

Pedro Arrupe was in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb exploded. He was then in charge of the novices in Japan. He and the novices immediately went out and gave whatever assistance they could in a world which in the blinking of an eye had changed completely. We can only imagine the devastation and the suffering. He later, as you know, became the superior general of the Society of Jesus, and gave a little talk on the Eucharist, in which he said that the Eucharist lacks something everywhere if there is hunger anywhere. No doubt the experience he had in Hiroshima stayed with him in a haunting way.

When Matthew was telling the this story, he was telling it to people who already celebrated the Eucharist, and is about feeding the hungry and the way God feeds us in the Eucharist. Notice the words 'taking the loaves', 'blessing', 'breaking', 'giving'. By recalling the place as a lonely place, he wants his listeners to remember the desert experience in the old testament, and Jesus' own desert experience of 40 days after which he was hungry and then tempted by the devil. If we recall part of the temptation was to satisfy his own needs by his own power.

So we go back to Arrupe. We celebrate the generosity of God in feeding us with bread from heaven, but we recall that we are ordered to feed those who a hungry, give them something to eat yourselves. The ABC has just had great response to their call for jocks and socks, knickers and bras, for the homeless. There has also been a collection of bras to be sent to Fiji, again with great response. It highlights part of the generosity of our people of Australia, but also the great need for food, shelter, water and medicines virtually all over the world.

Arrupe invites us as we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, to be very mindful of poverty wherever it is experienced. That our gathering in faith here lacks something because there are still people who go hungry.

In Matthew's story, not only are people fed because of the sharing, but there are 12 baskets of leftovers. These are for the rest of God's people, beginning with the 12 tribes of Israel.