Homily for the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 25, 2021, Year B
Fr. René J. Butler, M.S. La Salette Missionaries of North America Hartford, Connecticut ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) How much food can you buy for $11,600.00? Maybe 1,365 small pepperoni pizzas. Not enough. Or about 2,900 hamburgers. Not enough. Or about 1,900 rotisserie chickens. Still not enough. Not enough, according to the Apostle Philip, to feed the large crowd that was following Jesus. "Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little," he says. Assuming today’s federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, times 8 hours a day, times 5 days a week, times 40 weeks, you get $11,600.00. Not enough to feed this crowd. This feeding of the multitude is one of the few events that is recorded in all four Gospels. In each case the text specifies five thousand men, and Matthew even notes that this number does not include women and children. The point in each Gospel is that what is on hand, the "supply" in economic term