3 August 2014 - thou givest them their food in due season.

3 August 2014 -  thou givest them their food in due season.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd.  He makes the crowds lie down on green pastures and prepares a feast for them.  "The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs."  If he answers all of our needs it can only be because he knows what they are.  Indeed, when he sees the vast crowd "his heart was moved with pity for them" and he cures them.  He himself knows the crowd is hungry before anyone mentions it to him.

We can trust Jesus with all of our needs.  No matter how many of us there are, no matter how varied our needs, we are not forgotten, and his abundance is not exhausted.

The eyes of all look hopefully to you,
and you give them their food in due season;
you open your hand
and satisfy the desire of every living thing.

Whether our needs exist on the natural level or whether our hunger is a supernatural hunger for him none of it escapes his notice.  None of it is beyond his concern.  He reminds us that birds of the air don't so, reap, or store away in barns and yet enjoy his providence (cf. Mat. 6:26).  How much more can we trust him!  We may have difficulties (and in fact he promises we will) but we will always have what we need.

Yet we continue to be anxious as if we won't get something we need or to hold what we need when we have it.  He invites all who thirst to come to him to receive the water which will not leave us thirsty again. He wants to give us the water of life that can well up to eternal life in us. Eternal life is a place beyond the reach anxiety!  Anxiety is time-bound and passing away.  Jesus invites us to stop spending our efforts on futile pursuits and instead to taste to bread of heaven.  Our efforts cannot earn this so we anxiety can't help us here.  It is a freely given gift.  Everything else, all for which we work so hard, ultimately "fails to satisfy" but not the bread that Jesus gives.  He invites us to come to him heedfully that we might have life, life which can only be found in the bread and wine of the Eucharist, the water of life that rushes upon us in the person of the Holy Spirit.

Because Jesus knows what we need and makes it so superabundantly available we can trust him.  We can be convinced like Paul that nothing can separate us from the love of Jesus precisely because Jesus will allow nothing to do so.  The thing which we would most fear might do this, death itself, cannot do so. It is defeated and disarmed.  The Eucharist is the bread of life, and if we just listen heedfully and come to Jesus here we will have life.  More so than the crowds, when we come to Jesus to meet our needs we truly eat and are satisfied.

It can start small.  Sometimes it starts with just a few loaves and fish.  When Jesus asks for something from us which seems to small to help let us not hold back.  It isn't ultimately about whether or not we have enough.  It is about what Jesus can do with it.  And with him, there will even be enough for left overs!