This homily, based on Numbers 11:4-5 and Matthew 14:13-21, was delivered on 05 August 2013.
Our First Reading is all about wailing and whining. First, we have the Israelites, fresh from their escape from Egypt, wailing and whining about their menu in the desert. “If only we had meat to eat!” they cried out, reciting a litany of the food they missed and singing the praises of Egyptian cuisine. Of course they grew sick of their daily diet of heaven-sent manna, which, we’re told by the way, tasted like “cakes baked with oil.”
But that’s not all: Even their prophet Moses, hearing their complaints, joined the bandwagon and did his own wailing and whining too, complaining to God about how the people burdened him so much. “I’m not their mother!” he basically told God. And he must have felt really bad because he ended by declaring: “If this is the way you are going to treat me, put me to death at once!”