Homily: Saturday 5th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings: Gn 3:1-24 • Ps 90 • Mk 8:1-10

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After that first sin, that original sin, God asks Adam a question: 

"Adam, where are you?" [Gn 3:9]

At first it seem a strange question, doesn't it? After all, God knows where Adam is physically. But then we realize what God is really asking. He's asking Adam to look within himself and recognize where he is spiritually because of his sin. Yes, indeed...

"Adam, Where are you?"

Don't you see what's happened, Adam? What you and Eve have done to yourselves? 

With that simple question God reminds them that He had given them paradise on earth, everything they needed, but they had tossed it aside. They lost their intended place in God's creation because they desired God's place. 

God had created them in His image, molded them into His likeness, blessed them as no other creatures had been blessed, and yet they listened to Satan and succumbed to the temptation to be like God.

How that question, that Word of God, must have echoed throughout the Garden: 

"Adam, where are you?"

It's the kind of question Jesus would ask, isn't it? Calling the sinner back to awareness of his sinfulness. We hear similar questions in the Gospels, don't we?

"Woman, where are your accusers?" [Jn 8:10]

"Simon, son of John, do you love me?" [Jn 21:15-17]

St. Irenaeus, one of the great Fathers of the early Church, reminds us that it truly is the Eternal Word of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son of the Father, who speaks to Adam in the Garden. Listens to what Irenaeus writes:

"It is the Son who speaks with men... the Word of God who is always with the human race...and who teaches the things of God to men. The Son of God speaks now with Abraham, now with Noah...now He seeks out Adam..."

Yes, indeed, He who will be called the "New Adam," the Word of God, the Son of God, seeks out and calls to Adam: 

"Adam, where are you?"

Adam is shamed. He and the woman are naked. With their sin they have cast themselves out of paradise and into exile. They know they have sinned, just as you and I know when we have sinned. But they refuse to admit it, to repent. Adam blames the woman. The other, the one created to be loved is now to be blamed.

Already the effects of their sin have taken hold. Sin and its effects will multiply and infect every generation that follows, pouring through the ages. We soon encounter it again, when God's Word asks another question:

"Cain, where is your brother?" [Gn 4:9]

Sin multiplies. A brother is envied, despised, and murdered. Today God asks us those same questions.

Where are you? Where is your brother?

Our world, much like our first parents in Eden, has become lost. Rather than recognizing and repenting of our sinfulness, rather than caring for one another, we cast blame, and we destroy.

"Where is your brother?"

It is a question that God, in His love and mercy, asks each of us. 

"Where are you?"

What you have done? What horrors have you brought to my creation? Why do you turn away from me, convinced you are gods? Why do you turn away from me when I call out to you?

Yes, God seeks us out, just as He sought Adam and Eve in the Garden.

God had provided them with food but they ate that which was forbidden them. Out of their rebellion something else is forbidden them: to eat of the tree of life, which would cause them to live forever. Despite their sinfulness, God offers them, and He offers us, a path to return to God from their exile.

As they leave the Garden they encounter God's mercy. And from that encounter comes a promise. It is the promise of God's Son, the gift of Jesus Christ, who will take on Adam's nakedness, our nakedness, who will take on the shame of humanity, the shame of all our sins, and allow Himself to be sacrificed by those He created.

By His wounds we are healed [1 Pt 2:24].

Yes, Jesus is nailed to the tree of life, and leaves us a new food: the Eucharist, His own Body and Blood. Once again we can eat of the food that will give us eternal life. It is through Jesus Himself that we are transformed.

The Mass is a kind of new Eden in which Jesus feeds us with the food that perfectly satisfies. We see a foreshadowing of this in today's Gospel passage from Mark:

"He took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks, He broke them and handed them to His disciples to distribute. And they distributed them among the crowd" [Mk 8:6].

The Eucharist, the Bread of Life, comes from Jesus but is distributed by his disciples. Today we, the disciples, are called to feed the hungry with both the physical and spiritual bread they need.

Lord, teach us to serve you as you deserve; to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to labor and seek no reward save that of knowing that we do your holy will.