Posted by Fourth Sunday in Lent
This Sunday is perhaps the day in the Christian year with the most names. It is called “Laetare” Sunday from the Introit for the Mass. It is known as “Rose Sunday” from the rose vestments that are traditionally worn for this Sunday. It is called “Refreshment Sunday” from the Gospel reading of the Feeding of the Five Thousand, and also because it marks a respite from the austerities of Lent before we enter the Passion season.
However, the title by which it is most commonly known is “Mothering Sunday”. Today this is most commonly understood as referring to our own earthly mothers, but the traditional meaning sees it as referring to our Holy Mother the Church. It is this that is referred to by St. Paul writing to the Galatians: “our mother is the heavenly Jerusalem, a city of freedom.” (Galatians 4:26).
St. Paul wrote to the Galatians in order to combat the first great error or heresy that arose in the history of the Church. This was the belief that a Gentile (that is, a non Jew) needed to be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses (in other words become a Jew) in order to be within the Church, the Israel of God. By contrast, St. Paul teaches that it is not necessary for a Gentile to become a Jew before becoming a Christian. The Church, the true Israel of God and heir of the promises of the Old Testament, was now defined not by race, but by faith. St. Paul’s opponents had pointed out that Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, had received the covenant of circumcision, thereby defining for future generations the membership of the covenant people. St. Paul had replied that Abraham had been counted righteous before God not because he was circumcised, but because he believed in the promises of God that in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed. Abraham was therefore the father of all that believed, whether they were Jews or Gentiles.
The Book of Genesis describes how Abraham had two sons. The first was Ishmael from Hagar, a slave woman. The second was Isaac, from Sarah his wife, a free woman. It was Isaac and not Ishmael who was the heir of the promise of God that in the seed of Abraham all the nations of the earth would be blessed. These things were an allegory of the two covenants. Hagar, the slave woman and her descendants stood for the covenant on mount Sinai (the Law of Moses). “Mount Sinai, in Arabia, has the same meaning in the allegory as Jerusalem, the Jerusalem which exists here and now; an enslaved city, whose children are slaves” (Galatians 4: 25). However, “our mother is the heavenly Jerusalem, a city of freedom”. “It is we, brethren, that are children of the promise, as Isaac was”. “You see then, brethren, that we are sons of the freewoman and not of the slave; such is the freedom Christ has won for us” (Galatians 4:31). We became members of the Church, the Body of Christ, at our baptism and are therefore the heirs of the promises of God to Abraham. It is not circumcision, but baptism that makes us members of the people of God, our Holy Mother the Church. As St. Paul put it in another passage to the Galatians, “For as many of you as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3: 27-29).
The Epistle has spoken to us of our mother the Church and of the baptism which begins our membership of it. The Gospel speaks to us of the food of man wayfaring, the bread of life which we receive in Holy Communion and which strengthens us on our journey through the wilderness of the world. The Feeding of the Five Thousand marks the climax of Jesus’ Galilean ministry and is the one miracle that is reported in all four Gospels. Jesus had come into Galilee as the anointed liberator of Israel in whose ministry the prophecies of Isaiah about the eyes of the blind being opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped were being fulfilled. On this occasion the multitude followed him to the other side of the sea of Galilee because they saw the miracles he did on the diseased. His feeding them with five loaves and a few fishes reminded them of the feeding of the Israelites with manna in the wilderness. They acclaimed Jesus as the Prophet like Moses who was foretold to come into the world, and sought to make him king by force. However, Jesus dismissed the crowd and withdrew by himself. The world could not be won by the world’s own methods.
St. John later expounds the meaning of the miracle as a sign of Christ himself as the bread of life. The Feeding of the Five Thousand was a foreshadowing of the Eucharist. It was not Moses but Christ himself who was the true giver of the bread of heaven, the gift of himself.
“My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, abideth in me and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me shall live by me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead. He that eateth this bread shall live for ever” (John 6: 56-59).
Bread of heaven, on thee we feed,
For thy flesh is meat indeed;
Ever may our souls be fed
With this true and living bread;
Day by day with strength supplied
Through the life of him who died.
Vine of heaven, thy blood supplies
This blest cup of sacrifice;
Lord thy wounds our healing give,
To thy Cross we look and live:
Jesus, may we ever be
Grafted, rooted, built in thee.