Matthew 14: 13>. When (Jesus) disembarked (the boat) and saw the vast crowd, His heart was moved with pity for them, and He cured their sick…When it was evening, (Jesus) ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish (of which they disciples had collected from a family there), and looking up to heaven, He said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds. They all ate and were satisfied.
Homily >>> As we celebrate this Summer of 250 years of the Declaration of Independence and our nation’s becoming free of English crown control, I am Summer preaching on gratitude for what happened in this land back then— to provide what we have today as Catholics. If we did not become free as a new nation, then the Catholic Church in America as you know it now would really not be here. It would have been persecuted to death.
You know that from King Henry 8th making a new “Church of England” under him in the 1550’s and in going centuries forward, England’s crown has fiercely persecuted Catholics almost right out of existence in their realm. And, to the New World, although an initial promise of religious toleration was given in the earliest of Colonial days, to English colonies like Maryland, even by 1704 and on that had all changed to a growing anti-Catholic pressure in English colonies heading to the persecution that embattled and killed Catholics back home. America’s seaboard colonies were next—particularly Maryland. Our colony already had all voting rights and governance powers already taken from away from Catholic Marylanders, with no public Mass allowed to be done nor church used or built up from 1704 to 1776 for any advance of Catholicism under an English flag. Being Catholic and worshipping at Mass had to be a clandestine activity in those decades leading to 1776. Virginia had always been very hostile to Catholics—from the time her colony was founded in 1607, there was not an official Catholic Mass to take place in her territory until 1781, in Alexandria. Note: That’s five years after the Declaration of Independence.
America’s independence undid the anti-Catholic lock against us Catholics. 1n 1789 Jesuits in Maryland at Whitemarsh/Bowie picked a native Jesuit priest for to lead the now-allowed-to-exist Catholic Church in the colonies. He was Fr. John Carroll. In a few years he was named as the USA’s first Catholic apostle/bishop, to be based in Baltimore. The second bishop was another Marylander, Leonard Neale of Port Tobacco. While Carroll served Baltimore, Neale more worked in the present DC area, and became president of Georgetown Jesuit College and got a religious order of Visitation nuns to serve the area. Progress was being made because of the Independence of the colonies to become the U.S.
It is interesting that as the Catholic Church emerged in early 1800’s, God had been readying Carroll and Neale to lead the Church. Carroll was born in Upper Marlboro in 1735, and Neale born in Southern Maryland in 1742, They would become leaders to our Church newly emerging with American Freedom. Another person named Elizabeth Ann Bayley was born in 1774 in New York City, whom the Lord was preparing for the budding Church in Maryland. Mother Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton converted from the Church of England and moved to Maryland, so to do doing amazing things in Baltimore and Emmitsburg, even starting a religious order. All done while first working for Carroll.
These were all seeds put in the ground by the Lord, people to whom would be there to raise up the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church in America.
In this 250th year of the USA, under the red, white and blue—I would like to compare the compassionate Christ at the Sea of Galilee in today’s gospel to the compassionate Christ at our American shores seeking to get something started for His Body, the Church.
In Matthew 14 it tells of Jesus getting off a boat, that is, disembarking onto land on a Galilee shore. Waiting for him is a huge throng of people, a few thousand people. The gospel says he saw the vast and needy crowd of persons and was feeling compassionate for them. He organized people into sitting on the hillside to receive words and deeds from Him.
I’d like to compare that Jesus to a Jesus of later times in history. Imagine a time when our Lord God saw this vast land of America five hundred (plus) years ago, and how God saw it to be as without faith or knowledge of our Lord Jesus, the Savior of the world. He would come to us. How? Our Lord God used the voyage of Christopher Columbus in1492, and the Catholic evangelization that followed upon it—to help us get the revelation of Himself that was already known for about 13 to 15 centuries by much of Europe, parts of Africa, India, and parts of Russia. Yet the land on this side of the Atlantic was walking in darkness for all those centuries. The Lord saw this and was moved with compassion, so to provide us with great help to reveal Himself and His kingdom to this “New World.” It came.
Move along to Maryland and the 17th century. Jesus “saw” the English colonies and a small Catholic enterprise coming to Maryland. He saw that the seed of faith could grow here, and so the Catholic Church began fittingly in Maryland on Annunciation Day, of when a Mass was held by pilgrims from England. God in Christ truly disembarked onto St. Clement’s Island, Md. and would begin His Presence and Eucharist to Maryland. March 25th—1634.
I’ll propose that Jesus stepped off the voyage to Maryland on her Ark and Dove landing in Maryland, and He wanted to get started with His Church here. He wasn’t seen doing it like in His public ministry in Galilee, but just like Matthew describes the Galilean visit. Jesus disembarked and began doing His ministry among us. Like that of the Matthew 14 Galilean hillside account, Jesus was ready from that March 25th on to give a blessing and feed a vast people who’d occupy this Maryland territory and other places in the New World. So this disembarking Jesus onto our soil was truly on a much, much (!) larger scale than His crowd by the seaside in the Matthew 14 Gospel story. Jesus saw you in His gaze for Maryland and for this Catholic evangelization of a New World. He saw the 1634 moment—He was there. He saw the 1776 and 1814 moments securing Catholic freedoms—He was there. He would be there as Maryland Catholics and other Catholics (like in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, New York, etc.) came seeking Him. Today is has been you seeking Him in this Mass, for whom He’ll meet and feed you in the breaking of the bread, as well show you His precious blood given for your sins. It’s in the chalice offered on the altar.
When Jesus disembarked the boat and saw” the vast opening for His Kingdom of God to live in people here, in Maryland and the USA, “His Heart was moved with compassion. Jesus was moved with compassion to help His true Church begin here in this colony, on our soil Jesus tread as The Incarnate One among us. Since that time, through the two and a half centuries in Maryland, Jesus has been feeding His Body in Maryland with Word and Sacrament, now with one million Catholics in The Old Line State today. He’s been leading, feeding, healing and guiding us along. The Lord Jesus, Head of the Body, the Church has been with us.
The story goes for His mission around the USA, granted to happen because the English anti-Catholic Church movement failed to deter us. We had our freedom. Before our Independence, England wanted to prevent any opportunity for the French, Spanish or Portuguese Catholic nations to have any of this whole eastern Atlantic seaboard. If they had won out, then you’d have little Catholicism here in the mid-Atlantic, south Atlantic, nor up in New England and the places down to Delaware. That’s why a turn of events and our present 250th anniversary of Independence is such a celebration for Catholics—it gave us a religious freedom to enjoy for our nation’s history at these original colonies’ territory—and beyond. Celebrate it.
Examine this next phrase of our Matthew 14 text. “Jesus saw a vast crowd hungry and ready to believe in Him….” Besides that Galilean crowd in AD 31, realize as well that the same Jesus saw us in the USA long ago as a vast crowd, hungry and ready to believe in Him. You and I were in the Savior’s vision over Maryland. \
Because we strove for our Independence and united versus England, by 1808, Maryland and the other colonies had grown to a Catholic number of 30,000—from the small dozens of pilgrims and priests who started the Church here in the 1600’s. Pretty amazing. It is like the Matthew 13 parable of the mustard seed later being a tree/bush a few years later holding a flock of birds in its 20 foot span up of branches. From 1776 to 1808, when the Baltimore diocese had its Archbishop Carroll in Baltimore—that the Catholic number was 30k was significant. Even more wondrous is what happened from 1808 to now. We went from one diocese in America to four to 194 Catholic Archdioceses or dioceses today in 2026 USA. That orderly organization by Jesus of His Church fits very well to the next action Jesus took in the Matthew 14 text in the Galilee gathering of the multitude.
“Jesus ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass…and He fed them.” There are 72 million Catholics in the nation now. 1 million of them are here in Maryland parishes. Jesus has organized us in His Church. We are sitting down in parishes and dioceses and such. Jesus is feeding us all, too, the huge numbers are not hard for Him. He is just looking for hungry hearts for righteousness in God. This Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament to you today is a miraculous meal so much more impressive that the thousands fed from one family picnic basket. Jesus is feeding us from His very own Body and Blood, of an endless supply of mercy.
Get into that realization. You are engaged in miraculous times with Jesus. He is also changing you into an eternal child of God as you live your daily Catholic faith.. See us today. See even our 900 souls coming to Mass at this parish on a Saturday/Sunday and our 7 liturgies gathering us with Jesus. (Resurrection is part of the 300 Catholic parishes all spread over Maryland now. Think of what our worship and service to Christ means to Him from all of us—and from giving hearts and praising souls!
Go back to the Matthew 13 parables in Masses this Summer, about a seed planted on good ground, and our need to be having the open heart, mind and soul to see growth come to our Catholic Faith. Did those parables in the past Sundays move you at all to take review of your Faith and of your support to the Church, and your part in it? I hope so. Does this hillside miracle and its connection to you at Eucharist here today with Jesus move you in faith? Did you catch on that the miracle of the loaves and fishes came from one family’s offering of their food basket to Jesus and His apostles? Jesus took that one act of generosity in the crowd, and gave from that to make a miracle for all. As you give to the Church, and generously, freely and honestly, do you realize that your giving it to Jesus then makes spiritual wonders possible right here?
I can go back to 2020 and recall a wonder that took place in parishioner giving here. Even while it was Covid time, and with all its restrictions and financial tightness, this parish paid off its Keffer Center bill. When I came on in 2017 it was nearly a 1 million dollar debt passed down to my pastorate, but by 2020 we had it paid off. I was so happy to tell Fr. Bob that the building is his name now was truly ours, and not partially some banks property. “We can now polish your Keffer name on the building front, Fr. Bob. Your 4.2 million dollar plus building project has reached it completion. Right through all this giving spirit from Resurrection and Riderwood members here. Bravo. Bravo.
In the Matthew 14 story today, it finishes by saying that all were fed and satisfied by Jesus’ miracle, and the leftovers were a lot, but neatly collected in wicker baskets.
We have been quite satisfied with having a Keffer Center here. Your staff particularly enjoy it, and all our classes in its rooms really are helpful. A real happy moment in it was in 2018 when we held Fr. Keffer and Sr. Rita’s 50th Anniversaries here, with food and drink and fellowship after a nice, celebratory Golden Mass. I am not sure if we had wicker baskets of leftover food or drink, but if so, it was probably delivered to a men’s shelter the next morning.
That’s the homily. I’d like to add on that the pilgrimage trip I am leading to Baltimore on Assumption Day, Saturday the 15th, is a thanksgiving trip that we Marylanders won the 1814 battle at Fort McHenry and Baltimore. It turned the tide versus us being an English-ruled land, and settled things that we were to be a free, new nation on the rise. We in Maryland in this Year 250 particularly honor the defensive victory locally in Baltimore in 1814, on land and at Fort McHenry in Baltimore’s harbor. The English intended strikes for invasion listed as Assumption Cathedral and the new Catholic seminary on Paca Street (where later in history Fr. Bob Keffer attended), and of a city burning—but they failed. Thus, by this loss, the anti-Catholic English control would lose its control in our land, England would not hold sway over us anymore, and America would then not be having its martyrs like England, when faithful English Catholics lives were taken in scores, such as Sir Thomas More, Bishop John Fisher, Countess Margaret Pole, Thomas Sherwood, Archbishop Oliver Plunkett, Fr. John Payne, and Fr. Robert Southwell, who fought for their faith.
We still have a fight for our Catholic Faith versus secular humanism and atheistic socialism and all the Me-ism and New Age folly—but it is in an America whose motto still is “In God We Trust.” We will live for that kind of America. We will have an Assumption Mass on that pilgrimage day in the cathedral, but the parish also will have three Assumption Masses on the 14th and 15th this month, all glad to be in Mary’s Land, with Jesus’ Blessed Mother.
PILGRIMAGE ON THE SATURDAY FEAST OF THE ASSUMPTION, AUG. 15. TRIP TO BALTIMORE TO SEE THE ASSUMPTION BASILICA, CELEBRATE MASS THERE, THEN GO TO THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER MUSEUM (LITTLE ITALY AREA), HAVE LUNCH IN LITTLE ITALY, AND THEN GO TO FORT MCHENRY.
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