Are You Hungry?

WE ARE GROWING AS A COMMUNITY!

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Hey everyone, I’m ready to go! Glasses on … Gospel open … it’s rich! It’s a big, big miracle that happens here—so let’s get started!

Gospel John 6:1-15

Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee.
A large crowd followed him,
because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick.
Jesus went up on the mountain,
and there he sat down with his disciples.
The Jewish feast of Passover was near.
When Jesus raised his eyes
and saw that a large crowd was coming to him,
he said to Philip,
“Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?”
He said this to test him,
because he himself knew what he was going to do.
Philip answered him,
“Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough
for each of them to have a little.”
One of his disciples,
Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him,
“There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish;
but what good are these for so many?”
Jesus said, “Have the people recline.”
Now there was a great deal of grass in that place.
So the men reclined, about five thousand in number.
Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks,
and distributed them to those who were reclining,
and also as much of the fish as they wanted.
When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples,
“Gather the fragments left over,
so that nothing will be wasted.”
So they collected them,
and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments
from the five barley loaves
that had been more than they could eat.
When the people saw the sign he had done, they said,
“This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.”
Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off
to make him king,
he withdrew again to the mountain alone.

There’s a lot of typography from the Old Testament with Moses and Jesus in the New Testament. This is also the multiplication of the bread and the fish that precedes the Eucharist—the Bread of Life Discourse as we call it in the Catholic Church. I am not going to get into that on this vlog. What I am going to get into is how this Gospel should help you in your life, living and trusting in God.

God fed everyone! He didn’t pick and choose who was going to have food. As a matter of fact, there were 12 baskets (no coincidence with the number 12—the 12 tribes of Israel) collected, FILLED with bread, plenty leftover, nothing was wasted.

Another thing to note, the little boy could have easily said, “You know, Jesus, I don’t think I want to give you my two sardines and my five barley loaves because, you know, we should just split it amongst ourselves. Maybe Andrew and Philip can get in on it and that should be enough for us because there’s no way you’re going to feed 5,000 men!” But he didn’t. He gave them to Jesus and Jesus fed everybody. Jesus feeds all of us, especially when we’re the most hungry.

Let’s think about it for a second. We don’t know what our offering is going to produce. We don’t know if it’s going to bear fruit or not. We don’t know if smiling at that person or helping that gentleman in his car or whatever act of love that we are doing to our neighbors and our brothers and sisters on this planet, sharing the word of God, sharing our faith, will do. We don’t know what fruit that’s going to bear. All we need to know is that God meets us in the ordinary places in our lives, where we are, in our ordinary days. You do not have to go to the Temple to find Him.

That is another point of this particular Gospel in the New Testament. “I’m out here on a mountain hanging out on the grass with 5,000 men in ordinary lives and I am feeding every single one of you!” says Jesus.

Just remember, you don’t know what your offerings to Jesus are going to turn out to be and trust and have faith that He will always be there, will always meet you, especially when you’re the most hungry. Trust in him. He is God. I’m going to leave it at that! Offer Jesus your love—you have no idea what fruit it will bear.

Alrighty. I tried to make this short. I could have gone on and on and on with this one, but I decided that I just wanted to pinpoint some of the major aspects of living the Gospel TODAY, trusting in the Lord, and you never know what your offerings will bear.

So, as always, have a blessed and inspired week!