Homily for the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A).
We don’t know much about how the Gospels were written. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John didn’t leave dustjacket biographies, like you see on book covers, because the point of writing a Gospel is to put the focus on Jesus and not on oneself. But we can tell a few things about the lives of the earliest Christians indirectly from what they wrote. One thing we know, for example, is that before even a word of the New Testament was written, the earliest Christians were already celebrating the sacraments. When you remember this, you begin to notice that symbols referring to the sacraments are all over the New Testament—especially baptism and the Eucharist, the two pillars of Christian life. Today’s Gospel passage, for example, begins with a reference to John the Baptist and ends with miraculous loaves of bread, an obvious symbol of the Eucharist.
The message of the Gospel writers is clear: when we celebrate the sacraments we are coming into contact with the ministry of Jesus. Today’s Gospel passage begins with news about John the Baptist—the tragic news that John had been killed by King Herod. Herod, if you remember, didn’t like the fact that John had accused him of living in an immoral marriage. Herod’s wife Herodias liked it even less and maneuvered to have John beheaded. Reading between the lines in today’s Gospel, it seems that Jesus felt wounded by the news of his cousin John’s execution and withdrew by boat to “a deserted place” to pray and mourn. Jesus, perhaps, also felt some premonition of his own Passion.
John’s death actually teaches us quite a bit about baptism, as much as any of his preaching. John’s baptism was a call to repentance and conversion; our baptism means the same thing. In baptism, we promise to live our life according to God’s teachings. But the baptisms that John performed were not exactly the same as our Christian baptism because a Christian baptism means sharing the death of Jesus. Jesus, in fact, sometimes uses the word “baptism” to refer to his own death and to the martyrdom of those who die for his name. John the Baptist, too, died a death like Jesus’.
But sharing in Jesus’ death also means sharing in his resurrection, so baptism means both death and starting a new life. And just as dying and being born are irreversible events, so too baptism changes us for eternity. We use the word “character” to refer to the permanent change that happens in our soul in some sacraments—baptism, confirmation, and holy orders. We might think of Paul’s words in Romans as describing sacramental character; it endures despite anything that anguish, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or the sword can do. Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, can reverse it.
Baptism is a new beginning and a new life, but it is only a beginning. As we see in today’s Gospel, even Jesus’ work had complications, and the new life we begin in baptism is no different. While nothing can reverse the change God makes in our soul in the sacrament, we can lose our way in this life—sometimes we do. Sometimes, to use Isaiah’s words, we spend our “money for what is not bread” and our “wages for what fails to satisfy.” In the Gospel we see the unruly crowds follow Jesus, but Jesus understands that they are at risk of hunger. We need Christ’s presence with us in this life to guide us, to strengthen us, to encourage us, to nourish us. The Eucharist does all these things and more. It is the sacrament in which we come into union—communion—with Jesus, but it is not a one-time event. Being in communion with Jesus is an ongoing reality that requires our continuing effort and commitment—our perseverance—and God’s ongoing grace, which we get when we receive the Eucharist week after week. The miraculous feeding of the five thousand is a sign that Jesus will give us the sustenance that we need to continue our journey of discipleship. “What will separate us from the love of Christ?” Paul asks, and the answer is, from God’s side, “Nothing.” God is really and truly present in the sacrament; he is here for us. But we need the nourishment that only he provides; without it, we will grow hungry. And when we are hungry, we grow weak—some have told me that I get ornery when hungry—so even if God’s promise remains unshaken, our salvation is at risk if we allow ourselves to drift from him.
As a final aside, another sacrament of initiation is required to prepare us fully for union with Christ—confirmation. If you don’t see how confirmation is present in today’s Gospel reading, that’s understandable. It’s only there indirectly. In confirmation we are anointed with oil—with sacred chrism. In the biblical world, anointing was the ritual used to initiate someone into a new mission—especially service as a priest, prophet, or king. In other words, we celebrate confirmation because service to God and to others—spiritual, missionary, and corporal—is an essential part of being a Christian, of being in union with Christ. And service is present in today’s Gospel passage. Jesus gives the disciples a mission: to feed the crowds and gather up the fragments.
At the beginning, I said that the sacraments bring us into contact with the ministry of Jesus, but we can say even more: the sacraments prepare us to cooperate in the ministry of Jesus. It’s especially appropriate to remember this today, as Fr. Hung begins his ministry here at St. Isaac Jogues. It’s a ministry for which he has been specially called and anointed in the sacrament of holy orders, but it’s something that all of us Christians at St. Isaac Jogues Parish are called, baptized, anointed, and fed to help him with. So don’t be wallflowers, but give him a hand! And know that the grace that we need for whatever journey lies ahead is present, unfailing, in this sacrament which we now celebrate together.
Readings: Is 55:1-3, Rom 8:35, 37-39, Matt 14:13-21
August 2, 2026
St. Isaac Jogues Parish
Rapid City, South Dakota
Tony Lusvardi, S.J. 