Saturday, February 10, 2024

10 February 2024 - more than enough


My heart is moved with pity for the crowd,
because they have been with me now for three days
and have nothing to eat.
If I send them away hungry to their homes,
they will collapse on the way,
and some of them have come a great distance.

We are reminded of the time when the angel of the Lord gave a food and water to the prophet Elijah because "the journey is too great for you" (see First Kings 19:6-8). Without the miraculous provisioning he would have grown weary and fainted, but although "youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength" (see Isaiah 40:20-31).

Coming out to a deserted place to be with the Lord means foregoing the usual sources of nourishment. It means that the easy options to satisfy our desires are far away from us, If we try to leave Jesus to go and restore ourselves in the way to which we are accustomed it may result in our entire collapse. In this deserted place we are in a new sphere of life, and returning to the old way is not only not a safe fall back plan but is in fact dangerous. We must not be like Lot's wife who looked back to what and turned into a pillar of salt (see Genesis 19:26). We must not be like those who set their hand to the plow and look back (see Luke 9:62). It is not only that we've come so far as to reach a place of no return. It is actually the case that there is no life to be found apart from Jesus, and we must learn to trust in him to provide for us so we can be nourished at the feast he sets before us.

And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all (see First Thessalonians 5:14).

Because of the Eucharistic overtones of the miracle of the loaves we tend to think of the disciples as the predecessors of our modern clergy and ourselves as those who are fed. And this is no doubt meant to be a primary interpretation. It is the Eucharist that strengthens us so that, like Elijah, we can go "in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God" (see First Kings 19:8). But might there be a secondary interpretation about those we ourselves might either nourish or send away? Are there people who are drawn to us because we are disciples of Christ whom we might either choose to feed or otherwise cast back upon their own inherently insufficient resources? We become acutely aware that we have, of ourselves, nothing to offer. We tend to think "Where can anyone get enough bread to satisfy them here in this deserted place?", even regardless of how many times before Jesus has multiplied our meager supply. This feeding of the four thousand is meant to be a reminder to us to rely on Jesus in all things. In the first place we rely on him to sustain us with his Eucharistic presence. Then, second, we trust that he will multiply our own meager offerings so that "so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work" (see Second Corinthians 9:8).





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