Christians from virtually every denomination (apart from conservative Evangelicals) claimed that some pastor or priest or teacher had tried to shovel this stuff on to them and the weird and wonderful thing is, everyone who agreed that they'd heard this lame brained 'demythologizing' of the miracle thought how stupid it was, and the well meaning liberal preacher, through his words, had not taught them to share their lunch or anything else. Instead they only came away thinking how dumb the preacher was, and "if that is all there is to the gospels you can keep it."
It reminds me of the story about Flannery O'Connor who was having dinner with some posh writer folks in New York City and the hostess said she thought the Eucharist was 'a symbol'. Eventually one of the snobs said, "And what do you think about this Miss O'Connor?" Flannery (who all evening had been intimidated and silent) said, "If it's only a symbol to hell with it."
This sort of platitudinous demythologizing is just about the most nauseating thing anybody can do with Christianity. It replaces the wine of the faith with Coke Zero--something sweet, but which doesn't have calories or caffeine and doesn't even quench your thirst properly. Explaining away the miraculous in religion actually changes it from being religion at all. Who wants a religion without the supernatural? Religion without the supernatural is just a set of table manners.
I don't care a button for a religion of good works and 'sharing'. I want full blooded miracles please. I want religion to be about the hope of heaven and the fear of hell and angels and demons and the glory of the saints. I want Padre Pio bi locating and St Theresa of Avila levitating and St Bernadette seeing the Blessed Virgin and then her body not corrupting. I want St Agnes dying for her virginity and Fr Jogues, who was granted a dispensation to celebrate the Mass with no fingers because they had been chopped off and eaten by the savage Iroquois Indians who he insisted on going all the way back across the Atlantic to minister to.
That's the sort of 'sharing' I'm in favor of, and all this sentimental clap trap about 'wasn't it wonderful that the little boy shared his peanut butter and jelly sandwich and so inspired everyone else to share their lunch too!" Makes me want to puke.
Really, there has been many a rock concert where the audience was miraculously moved to share weed with one another. Some rocker's going to be interested if that's a cause for canonization :)
ReplyDeleteIf one can believe in all of those supernatural miracles, why not literal six-day Creation? Isn't that just as amazing as feeding the five thousand, the Virgin birth, the immaculate conception, the resurrection, and the Real Presence?
ReplyDeleteYou have expressed something here, Father, which I have felt for a very long time. I first heard the sharing lunch myth from the headmaster of my Catholic Secondary School in the English Midlands in c.1969/70. "Wouldn't it be just as much a miracle?" he asked seemingly rhetorically. Of course none of us pupils dared answer but I am fairly certain that everyone felt as I did that, frankly, no, it would not be a miracle at all. The saving grace of my schooldays was the realisation that some of my teachers were fools!
ReplyDeleteFrom a simple reading of this Sunday's Gospel text it is clear that it has nothing to do with "sharing" but an awful lot to do with the generosity of God who is not outdone in generosity. We cannot say how Our Lord multiplied the food. The point is that He took what little the disciples had and made so much more of it. From what appeared too little there was more than enough left over when everyone was satisfied.
Father --
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you tell us how you *really* feel:)
Flannery recalls:
ReplyDeleteWe went at eight, and at one, I hadn’t opened my mouth once, there being nothing in such company for me to say. . . . . Having me there was like having a dog present who had been trained to say a few words but overcome with inadequacy had forgotten them.
Well, toward the morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist, which I, being the Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. Mrs. Broadwater [Mary McCarthy] said when she was a child and received the Host, she thought of it as the Holy Ghost, He being the most ‘portable’ person of the Trinity. Now she thought of it as a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one.
I then said, in a very shaky voice, ‘”Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.” That was all the defense I was capable of.
Mercifully I've never heard this "sharing" business proposed from any Catholic pulpit or classroom.
ReplyDeleteAmen, Father!
ReplyDeleteAmen, Father! I actually heard that crap from the pulpit once and I couldn't believe it either.
ReplyDeleteOf course nobody that ever proposes this ridiculousness stops to consider, "well if everyone brought enough food to share with everyone else, then why did they all need to share in the first place?"
ReplyDeleteSince there is nothing in the text to suggest the "sharing" explanation, there is no compelling reason to believe it unless one believes that miracles are inherently impossible. If that is the case, there was no Resurrection, and also there is no God.
ReplyDelete@CassandraW
Indeed, a good theist of any kind, including not only Christians but also Jews and Muslims, must believe that God could have created the universe in 144 hours. That's not a problem.
However, there is internal evidence to the text itself, and not just from science, that the creation narrative is "a grown-up story meant to be read by grown-ups". Several early Christians, notably St. Augustine, wrote about this problem.
I loathe the denial of miracles performed by the Lamb because it stinks to high heaven of the real elephant in the room, arianism, which surely was one of the observations most painful to Him during the night in the garden.
ReplyDeleteWhy are supposedly God-believing and God-fearing souls so AFRAID to believe in the omnipotence of their very own God? Why do they shy from small miracles involving victuals when they seemingly accept larger ones such as the Incarnation, the Resurrection? How about the Holy Spirit descending at the Jordan "in the form of a dove"? Was the dove just a mirage in the minds of some? No, it was a dove.
God lives. He is I AM.
At Mass today...right down the path we go - "we don't really know what happened after He blessed the bread and they went to feed the crowd..." Couldn't believe with my own ears...finally "it was the miracle of people just being generous with the food they had brought with them in their cloaks..."
ReplyDeleteReally? You just told me we "didn't know". So why go *there* with it? Reducing everything to a "big shrug"?
It's always easier to believe in something we can wrap our heads around, control with our limited use of reason and which allows us to barely use our God-given imagination to move in the direction of the "impossible".
ReplyDeleteThe exciting thing about faith is the ability to catch glimpses of eternity, an abundance beyond our imagining, and the One and Only God Who is not made in our own image.
The tired old (cliché) version of events, i.e., ain't it grand that they shared their lunches, indicates belief in a very small god (of one's own making), not the God of revelation.
The search for Truth is the search fow what is, not what we want it to be or what we think it should be.
ReplyDeleteSeek and find.
Knock and it shall be opened.
Test everything and you shall know the Truth.
Sacred Scripture has much to tell us about Human Nature.
I remember well when I heard a liberal priest use this claptrap as his homily! I was livid. Why do they bother being Catholic if the Faith is that trite? Thank you for telling it like it is.
ReplyDeleteLeila asked, "I remember well when I heard a liberal priest use this claptrap as his homily! I was livid. Why do they bother being Catholic if the Faith is that trite? "
ReplyDeleteConditioning the congregation with wealth distribution is the liberal purpose in attaching that meaning to that story.
I believe in miracles.
ReplyDeleteMy dad's friend, Norman, now deceased (God rest his soul) had a bit of an argument with him over multiplication of species in general, saying that he didn't believe in it.
My dad, in his typical dad-ish way reminded Norman that he himself had started out on life's journey as a single cell, multiplying about six million times (or thereabouts) before being born as a small baby.
Norman, (who used to wear a hankie on his head when he was gardening to stop the sun burning him), thought about this....and went very quiet.
We only have to ask God to open our eyes with the illuminating light of the Holy Spirit. It's unbearable, the vastness of miracles all around. Even walking to work, chatting to Jesus, it's as if He says to me "Look at this that I've made, anew again, this morning!"
He is always doing something new because in the eternal now, nothing ages. Now and again, it's something unusual. A healing, or the feeding of the five thousand men, not forgetting the women and children also present but not counted (so my P.Priest said yeserday}.
We also have to exercise faith. Use it! Or you lose it! That's the deal and He will be looking for faith when He returns don't forget! Re-stock on your mustard seeds, those mountains of doubt need moving!!
There was a book with the title: "Your God is too small" (possibly written in response to just such silly ideas).
ReplyDeleteI am not interested in a God who can do no more than an inspiring human being could do. Roll on the new translation of the Mass if it gives us a more transcendent idea of God; the present translation is too banal by far. We need, too, to recover some of the awe we lost after Vatican II and to express that by coming up to communion in a way that does better than the somewhat untidy cafeteria queue we have at present: we are not coming to get a lunchtime sandwich, we are coming to receive the One who created us, who created the whole wonderful world around us which he then sustains.
I just love Jacobitess' comment - it says it all!
I'm not Catholic, so maybe I shouldn't post anything, but a friend commented elsewhere on the "sharing" thing. I got the sense that maybe the writer was saying there were two miracles. 1. The multiplication and 2. The sharing. The second being more because a depraved people were giving stuff away rather than stuffing their faces and bum-rushing the disciples for more. I've seen kids when a pinata breaks - brutal. But based on the reactions in the comments, maybe the writer didn't mean two miracles. If he meant only one miracle in the sharing, maybe he didn't grow up with brothers - Splitting a Milky Way 5 ways isn't worth it. I propose a 3rd miracle: That people stayed around for a 1/500 of something and were OK with it. "Want more? They got more in the baskets..." "Oh I couldn't! Not after that 1/500 of fish and bread. Heavens, this robe gets tighter every year!"
ReplyDeleteI always thought the sharing thing was something of an urban legend until I heard it with my own ears.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I have to say I heard a great homily on this yesterday. No downgrading of the miracle. But, a clear sense that we all have a responsibility to those who do not have food.
ReplyDeleteI just re-read the text again. Jesus clearly says, "Feed them yourselves." But they don't have enough. They give it to him and it multiplies.
God will multiply our efforts. God will always give his care and nourishment to anyone and everyone. But that doesn't mean that we are absolved from taking that first step and doing the basic thing - SHARING what we have received from God.
This is the same Gospel that tells us very clearly that judgement and our salvation depends on how we 'treat the least.' (Mt. 25)
Miracles are fine. But they are God's business, not ours. What is ours? Giving people what they need in Christ's name.
I am attending a seminary where many of the "professors" teach that the Bible is only the work of man trying to make a religion. I firmly denounce this teaching for if that is the case, what do we have, but just mere religion with false gods and a insane savior.
ReplyDeleteI am deeply concerned for our Christian churches, both protestant and Catholic, when those that teach don't believe.
Dear Sir or Madame:
ReplyDeleteI wush to complain the the strongest possible terms about your blog which trivializes something I hold dearly, namely Coke Zero.
While Coke Zero has ZERO calories, it does have caffine and plenty of it. I've had 5 this morning and am just peachy! My thirst is cetainly quenched. Now caffine-free diet Coke?--to hell with it!
If you're going to post about Coke Zero, at least get your facts straight, kind sir!
Yours,
Reginald Robert "Reg-Bob" Rosco
Atlanta, GA
That is the homily I wish I'd gotten Sunday! Thanks, Fr. L!!!
ReplyDeleteI will throw in a little variety here. The first time I heard this "sharing" thing I thought it was kind of cool. I didn't give it much thought at all, though.
I didn't even hear of it again until many years later, when I was back in the Catholic Church. This time it struck me as lame but I still thought perhaps I should accept it as a possible interpretation. I was trying to be "deep" and smart. Then my husband, who doesn't say much about church things, but always makes a good point when he does, cut right through the crap and said that, when he had first heard it as a child, his immediate thought was, "So the big miracle was getting Jews to share?" (fFor those who cannot hear typed irony, he is not anti-Semitic -- his point was that anyone who would say such a thing is.) He is great to have around!
Gail F nails it--It's a slap in the face to all Semitic peoples to suggest that it took a miracle for them to share. Culturally, if any of those people had come prepared for a meal, they would have shared pretty much automatically.
ReplyDeleteThere have been many well attested miracles of multiplication performed by God comparatively recently, for instance, through the prayer of St. John Vianney (he attributed miracles to the intercession of St. Philomena rather than the power of his own prayers.)
ReplyDelete"Once, when those at the orphanage and school told him in desperation that there was no longer had any food at all to eat, he bowed his head, prayed and send one of the staffers up to the previously empty attic with a cup to bring down some corn. The confused young woman went out of obedience, only to return seconds later saying that she couldn't open the door. When others went to help her, they discovered that the reason they door wouldn't open was because the entire attic was now filled with corn to the very roof."
PS It is Saint Philomena's feast day on the 11th of August so we all have time to make a novena as Saint John Vianney constantly recommended to all kinds of petitioners. If you have no petition of your own, pray the novena for priests which will please both St. John Vianney, the patron of priests and this dear little Saint herself.
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of funny, but I actually grew up with this interpretation and never questioned it (because I never really thought about it) until becoming Catholic and hearing it roundly mocked. My great-great grandfather was a Methodist minister who taught it, and as far as I know, my whole family subscribes to it.
ReplyDeleteHe would have been in ministry around the turn of the 20th century, so it goes back at least to the liberal Protestantism of that time.
This drives me nuts and has for ages. The Miracle of Sharing. I wrote a column about it ages ago
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amywelborn.com/columns/sharing.html
And tracked it as far as Scottish Biblical scholar William Barclay whose commentaries are commonplace in seminary education. You'd probably even recognize them if you saw them on the shelf. Karen LH - I'm sure your great-grandfather learned it in seminary along with many others.
As for me in my parish (Cathedral of St. Paul in Birmingham) -the permanent deacon who preached started out by mocking the Miracle of Sharing and then moved into an excellent homily exploring the event as a miracle and sign of the graciousness of God and the Eucharist...etc.
Here in the Diocese of Nashville, I heard a homily on The Miracle of Sharing this weekend! It is quite unbelievable in this day and age, with the free availability of solid catechetical materials, that this kind of "teaching" continues to be offered to the faithful.
ReplyDeleteThe visiting priest we had this Sunday was completely vague about what the actual miracle was. "Some say the Lord multiplied the loves and fishes other say it was that the people shared, Does it really matter?" Um, yeah, the first is mystical and wonderful, worthy of God, the other is just lame feel-good stuff that anyone can do.
ReplyDeleteI believe that Diet Caffeine Free Coke (not Coke-Zero) is the beverage of Liberal Catholicism. It has no Caffeine, so it doesn't "add life", and no Sugar, so no sweetness, but meanwhile sorta looks like "the real thing" and leaves a bad aftertaste.
@Amy, I didn't realize that Barclay held this view. I thought he was supposed to be pretty good.
ReplyDeleteMy great-great-grandfather preceded Barclay by several decades, though. He would have been preaching in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century.
So the idea goes back at least that far. I don't remember when the Modernist theologians started cropping up, but it does seem to be consistent with their desire to "demythologize" the Scriptures.
" I want religion to be about the hope of heaven and the fear of hell and angels and demons and the glory of the saints. I want Padre Pio bi locating and St Theresa of Avila levitating and St Bernadette seeing the Blessed Virgin and then her body not corrupting. I want St Agnes dying for her virginity and Fr Jogues, who was granted a dispensation to celebrate the Mass with no fingers because they had been chopped off and eaten by the savage Iroquois Indians who he insisted on going all the way back across the Atlantic to minister to."
ReplyDeleteAmazing. Thank you