Year A. Readings printed below in the RSVCE.
The Readings
First Reading: Isaiah 55:1-3
"Ho, every one who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Hearken diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in fatness. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 145:8-9, 15-16, 17-18
The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.
The eyes of all look to thee, and thou givest them their food in due season. Thou openest thy hand, thou satisfiest the desire of every living thing.
The Lord is just in all his ways, and kind in all his doings. The Lord is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth.
Second Reading: Romans 8:35, 37-39
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Gospel: Matthew 14:13-21
Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a lonely place apart. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. As he went ashore he saw a great throng; and he had compassion on them, and healed their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a lonely place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves." Jesus said, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat." They said to him, "We have only five loaves here and two fish." And he said, "Bring them here to me." Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass; and taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
Scriptural Analysis
Isaiah 55:1-3: The Banquet That Costs Nothing
Chapter 55 closes out the second part of Isaiah, and it closes it deliberately. The oracle picks up the themes of chapter 40, the prologue to this whole section, so that the two chapters bracket everything between them and give the book its literary spine.[1] Everything the prophet has been saying gets gathered here into a single image: a banquet, and an invitation to it. Verses 1 through 3 recall the covenant meal Moses and the elders ate on Sinai (Ex 24:5, 11), verses 4 and 5 renew the covenant with David on Zion, and the chapter ends with the promise of a new exodus.
The Hebrew opens with a street cry. "Ho, every one who thirsts" is the shout of a market vendor, and the joke inside the oracle is that this vendor charges nothing. Aquinas reads the first layer plainly. These were Jews impoverished by exile, and God promises them bread and the necessities they lacked, then adds delicacies on top, wine and milk, "as if to say, take as if you were buying."[2] Then he opens the mystical sense, and he does it with a precision worth stealing for the pulpit. Divine doctrine is called water because it heals the sick, cleanses the filthy, and slakes thirst (Sir 15:3; Ezek 36:25; Jn 4:13). It is called wine because it stings in argument, inflames in exhortation, and gladdens in consolation. It is called milk for its beauty, its sweetness, and the ease with which a newborn takes it (1 Pet 2:2).[3] Three images, three registers of preaching. A homilist who wants to know why the Church keeps talking has his answer in that paragraph.
The sharp line is verse 2: "Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?" That is a question about appetite, and it lands harder in a wealthy country than in a poor one. The exiles had no money. We have money and still buy what fails to feed us.
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