18th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year A
In Due Season
Rev. James A. Wickersham

When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist, he got into a boat and withdrew to a deserted place by himself.

That struck me this week. It tells us something beautiful about our Lord. He is fully divine, but he is also fully human. John isn't simply another prophet. He is his cousin. He is the one who prepared the way for him. Jesus mourns his death. He carries his grief into prayer.

But the Gospel doesn't end with Jesus alone in the wilderness. The crowds find him there. Instead of sending them away, he has compassion on them. He heals their sick. And before the day is over, he feeds them.

Jesus enters the wilderness carrying sorrow, yet he becomes food for others.

I think every one of us knows something about the wilderness. Maybe not one of sand and rocks, but one of grief, disappointment, guilt, fear, or uncertainty. A place where we wonder what God is doing.

I remember feeling that way during COVID. Our school was closing. The parish felt fractured. No matter what decision I made, someone thought it was wrong. Some thought I went too far. Others thought I didn't go far enough. More than once I told my spiritual director, "I think I'm the pastor who killed the parish." I felt like a failure!

It was a very dark time. I even asked Archbishop Coakley to move me away from here.

Then one day in prayer I heard the Lord speak to my heart. He said this: "You can move. But if you stay, you'll learn something."

That wasn't the answer I wanted. I wanted the Lord to remove the desert. Instead, he invited me to walk through the desert.

That changed the way I pray. When I'm carrying something heavy now, I don't usually ask the Lord to take it away. I ask him to walk with me. I ask him to help me carry it.

The psalm says today, "You give them their food in due season." Those words stayed with me all week. In due season. Not my season. His season.

If the Lord had answered the prayer I prayed in 2020, I would have missed one of the greatest gifts he has ever given me. The Lord did not remove me from the desert. He fed me there.

Isaiah asks us today, "Why spend your money for what is not bread, your wages for what fails to satisfy?"

Because that's exactly what we all do. We spend ourselves chasing approval, success, recognition, and security. We convince ourselves that if we can just have one more success or one more person's approval, then we'll finally have peace.

I finally realized what I had been hungry for. I wanted everyone to think I was a good pastor. I wanted everyone to approve of me. In a strange way, I wanted to save the parish myself.

But, there is only one Savior and I am not he.

Looking back now, I realize the Lord gave me something far greater than success or approval. He gave me himself. He taught me that the rich fare of worldly acclaim can never satisfy the human heart. The only food that truly satisfies is the food Christ gives us through his Church.

Notice again what happens in today's Gospel. Jesus does not remove the crowds from the wilderness. He feeds them there.

That is still what he does for us.

Some of you are carrying a burden today that no one else knows about. Some of you are grieving. Some of you are anxious. Some of you wonder why God hasn't answered your prayers. Don't mistake the desert for God's absence. He may not remove the desert today, but he will not stop feeding you there.

"Come to me heedfully," the Lord God says in Isaiah, "listen, that you may have life."

Every Mass, the Lord does exactly what he did in today's Gospel, what he did for me in the dark days of 2020. He gathers people who are tired, people who are grieving, people who have failed, people who wonder whether they are enough. He doesn't send them away. He feeds them.

He gives us not the food we think we want, but the food we actually need.

He gives us himself.

And that food is the Bread of Life.