22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (2)

In ancient times, banquets served a very practical purpose. Lacking any form of refrigeration, people in ancient times needed to consume perishable food stuffs before they went bad. If a whole beast was slaughtered, it would have to all be consumed within a few days. …

In order to understand what is going on in this story, we need to realize that it is to be read in the context of what has come just before it, namely the feeding of the 5000. It is no accident that purity laws in Jewish customs and traditions revolved around food and …