Saint Clement of Alexandria

ADVENT 1, WEDNESDAY, DAILY MASS:
PSALM 23; ISAIAH 25:6-9; MATTHEW 15:29-38

Today we celebrate the life of Saint Clement of Alexandria. Clement lived in the late second century. He was an extremely intellegent and eductaed man. He was the head of the famous Christian Catechitcal School in Alexandria, where he taught many important Christian thinkers, including Origen.

Clement and his peers encountered what is commonly called Gnosticism. Gnostic groups were usually recognized because they taught that Jesus had passed down secret knowledge about salvation to only a select few of his disciples, and they likewise had passed that knowledge only to a seletc few others. Clement, in all that he did, tried to counteract this, by teaching that the love of God was not a secret, but was made available through Jesus Christ for all people.

Our gospel today tells of the Feeding of the 4000. Did you notice how after three days in the wilderness, Jesus gave the suddenly abundant food to his disciples, then the disciples gave all of that food the crowds, then those crowds dispersed into the world? That, I think, clearly mirrors the resurrection. After three days, Jesus rose from the dead and apeared to his disciples. They then spread the news of his resurrection to the crowds, those crowds then dispersed around the globe and spread the good news of the resurrection to the whole world.

I think we can follow the example of Saint Clement, a saint who spread the knowlegde of the faith to many others. No matter how we are being feed spiritually, whether it is through mission or education or anything at all, I hope that each of us can take what we have been fed with and pass it along to others.