YEAR OF MISSION NINETEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

The beautiful narrative from today’s first reading presents us with a man on the run – Elijah. He’s fed up and he’s had enough! The food that he is offered – a simple scone and some water – nourishes and strengthens him to continue his journey a little further. Without that food the Lord offers him, he will wither and fade; with it he is encouraged and enlivened. What is offered to us in the gift of the Eucharist is life. We come to encounter the Lord who feeds us with his very self in our own weariness, sadness, loneliness, fear and desperation. We come to Mass sometimes fed up and with that feeling of wanting to give up. Christ reaches out to us in that weariness only to encourage us in the Eucharist, enliven us in the Eucharist and love us in the Eucharist. May the gift we receive this Sunday enable us to be something of the Lord’s encouragement to others… may they find strength from the Lord they encounter in us.