4th Sunday of Lent 14 March 2010 Sermon

4th Sunday of Lent 14.3.10 Laetare Sunday

Our Lord multiplied the bread not just because He felt sorry for certain hungry people but for the benefit of all future generations. The miracle makes us think of the Eucharist, not just of bread that we make into sandwiches but the bread from heaven.

The bread from heaven enables us to perceive God more clearly, and receive His help.

In general we have trouble grasping God: we cannot see, hear, or touch Him. This we find a disadvantage, as we rely so much on our sense experience.

We cannot take Him in all at once as He is greater than us; we can only receive Him according to our capacity.

He understands this and to help us He gives Himself in small doses as we ‘receive’ Him in the sacraments. We receive all of Him but we don’t really take in the full effects of His presence. So we take as much as we can at any one time.

We renew the link with Him. We have an abiding relationship through faith, but we need to renew and keep it on the boil. If I receive Him in Holy Communion it is not that I did not believe in Him before but now my belief is energised and increased.

There are the sacraments, but He gives us other signs as well. Any sign of His creative goodness is a sign of His goodness and closeness to Him. So we can see Him in the works of nature; or in the ‘chance’ events of everyday. His providence is all around us. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.

Read the signs, and get to know Him better and thus possess Him more fully.

(Even ugly things as being an obvious deviation from what ought to be – these too point to Him the source of all order.)

Open one door and find another door. All progressing closer to Him; each one revealing more of His reality.

Not a light or easy thing to know God. He is infinitely perfect. One cannot simply walk in to His presence as we can with another person.

There is so much more to discover. Think of Him as an infinite sea. We could stand on the shore with toe in water and think, Yeh, I know God (like a Catholic who goes to Midnight Mass every year and thinks that is enough).

Or we can be like the saints and wade deep out to sea and however far we reach there is always more to find.

So God reveals Himself through these ‘doors’. Always more where that came from.

He multiplied the bread; the Eucharist also. There is more that He can give and will give if we desire it.

In heaven we will see Him face to face, (no doubt with still more to discover). Here we proceed in a stumbling manner, groping somewhat but at least knowing what we are looking for.

We are changed in the process. Our capacity to know Him is increased. This is the whole point.

We can be a thimble full or a larger container.

Those who say, If He comes to me and works a miracle I will believe in Him - are being very crass and ignorant. The process is more subtle than that. If we understand the way God uses signs we will be on the right wavelength and able to progress, from one door to the next.

He does not hide from us. He wants us to find Him but in the process to be changed ourselves.

On this Sunday we ‘rejoice’: at the goodness of God and at His willingness to help us find Him.