God will magnify it (Fr. James Martin)

   Sometimes we can feel overwhelmed with life’s problems, whether in our families, our churches, our countries or our world. And we can feel powerless to do anything in the face of these problems. 

   But [Sunday’s] gospel, in which Jesus multiplies five loaves and two fish to feed a vast crowd, shows us that we only need to bring whatever we can into the world, and God will magnify it. 

   Notice, in the Gospel, that the one who brings the loaves and fishes to the disciples is a boy, who was probably prompted to do that by his parents. They gave what little they had. 

   We can do the same, even in the face of overwhelming odds: Love as you can, give as you can, forgive as you. And trust that God will magnify what you bring. 

--Fr. James Martin,
Facebook, July 25, 2021

Image source: Fish and Loaves, Byzantine mosaic, Chapel of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, Tabgha, https://www.bibleplaces.com/tabgha/

Sunday Gospel Reflection, July 28, 2024: The hand of the Lord feeds us...

The hand of the Lord feeds us…

And we are to feed one another! 

    God has always provided for God’s people. When, in the Second Book of Kings, the people of Israel are faced with a famine, the prophet Elisha knows that a meager offering of twenty barley loaves along with fresh grain in the ear will be enough. Give it to the people to eat, he tells his servant Gehazi, and when the servant protests that it can’t possibly be enough for a hundred people, Elisha shares God’s own words on the matter: You will eat and have some left over. The prophet knows that, as Psalm 145 reminds us, The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs. God will always give us food in due season, because God works to provide, no matter what barriers we might erect to stop him. 

    Jesus feeds a much larger crowd in John’s Gospel, but, while this miracle would surely have recalled to the people the work of the prophet Elisha, Jesus offers so much more than food to satisfy their physical hunger. Even the disciples see the situation as hopeless: There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many? Andrew asks. When Jesus provides more than enough food for the crowd, they immediately see in him the fulfillment of the ancient prophesies: This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world. Jesus’ ability to do what, to the human mind, is impossible causes them to want to come and carry him off to make him king. Jesus speaks to their hearts. 

    Like our Lord, we are called to be aware of others’ needs and to provide for them. This is integral to what it means to be church, as Paul reminds the Ephesians: in order to live in a manner worthy of the call we have received, we must bear with one another through love, allowing love to be what guides us in all of our relationships, that we might remain in union with Christ and in union with one another. We encounter Christ in Eucharist, of course, but we also encounter Christ in community, a unity that shares one body and one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism and one God and Father of all. We can only provide for all if we are one in him, that we might be the hand of the Lord that feeds all through the power of his love. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

A communion of salvation (Karl Rahner / Fr. Ron Rolheiser)

As regards to our salvation,
we remain dependent on other human beings…
Human beings are in a communion
of salvation and its opposite.

–Karl Rahner 

    Karl Rahner once explained it this way: Our love for each other does not just give us friendship and companionship here on earth, important though these are. It does something else too for us. It links us to love in such a way that when we stand before God and make our choice, a fundamental choice for all eternity, we stand there already connected in love to a community of grace and therefore much more prone to choose love and God. 

--Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI 

Image source: https://www.facebook.com/stbernpar/photos/a.265438283540196/3986741174743203/?type=3
Source of quotations (and much more fully developed article)

The wide-open pastures of our faith (Fr. Timothy Radcliffe)

    We are gathered in this Synod because we too are divided and hope and pray for unity of heart and mind. This should be our precious witness in a world which is torn apart by conflict and inequality. The Body of Christ should embody that peace which Jesus promised and for which the world longs. 

    [I have identified] two sources of division: Our conflicting hopes and different visions of the Church as home. But there is no need for these tensions to tear us apart. We are bearers of a hope beyond hope, and the spacious home of the Kingdom in which the Lord tells us there are ‘many dwelling places’ (John 14.1). 

    Of course not every hope or opinion is legitimate. But orthodoxy is spacious and heresy is narrow. The Lord leads his sheep out of the small enclosure of the sheepfold into the wide-open pastures of our faith. At Easter, he will lead them out of the small locked room into the unbounded vastness of God, ‘God’s plenty.’ 

--Fr. Timothy Radcliffe 

Image source: https://www.christianity.com/wiki/jesus-christ/what-does-it-mean-that-jesus-is-our-shepherd-today.html 
Quotation source

Like sheep without a shepherd (Bishop Robert Barron)

    [Sunday’s] Gospel shows Jesus’ compassion for the multitude in the desert. "When Jesus disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things." 

    There is the motif of the people Israel in the desert after their escape from Egypt. Isolated, alone, afraid, and without food, they clamored for something from Moses. Here we see people who are dying to be fed, and a prophet who is under threat of death. This crowd around the threatened Jesus is a metaphor for the Church. We have come to him because we are hungry, and we stay even when things look bleak. 

--Bishop Robert Barron,
Gospel Reflection, February 5, 2022

Image source: James Tissot, Le Sermon des Béatitudes (1886-1896), https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TissotBeatitudes.JPG

Bringing God's salvation (Sr. Joan Chittister / Pope Francis)

Compassion is the thread of God
that runs through the soul of the human race.

 --Sr. Joan Chittister 

    For Jesus, bringing God's salvation to all was the greatest happiness, the mission, the meaning of his existence (cf. Gal 6:38) or, as he says, his nourishment (cf. Gal 4:34). And in every word and action with which we unite ourselves to Him, in the beautiful adventure of giving love, light and joy multiply (cfr Is 9,2): not only around us, but also in us. To proclaim the Gospel, then, is not time wasted: it is to be happier by helping others; it is to free oneself by helping others to be free; it is to become better by helping others to be better! 

--Pope Francis, March 13, 2024 

Image source: https://www.summitkids.com/blog/encouraging-helping-behaviors-in-young-children/
Quotation 1 source
Quotation 2 source

Jesus went to where people needed him (Fr. James Martin)

   God meets you where you are. Jesus went to where people needed him. Mary appears to those who are suffering. All of this is part of God’s great mercy for each of us individually, but especially the poor and marginal. Our call is to emulate God, Jesus and Mary, in our preferential option for those who are in most need of our love, care and compassion. 

--Fr. James Martin,

Outreach, February 3 & 4, 2024

Image source: Jan Verhas, The Raising of the Widow’s Son in Nain (1860), https://divinerenovation.org/blog/jesus-speaks-to-me-a-focus-on-mothers/

Quotation source