In today’s Gospel we learn the value of participating in the work of our Lord. We learn that even when Jesus has taken time to heal many people, there is work He wants to involve us in, things He wants to do for others. Jesus is concerned about the crowd, and He lets His disciples know of His concern. However, the disciples respond that there is no place to get food for so many people. Jesus ignores their concern. They are thinking in human terms, not God’s.
Jesus asks them what they have and takes it from them. They are looking outside of themselves. But Jesus changes their perspective by making them look for what He needs among themselves: “How many loaves do you have?”
How many times does Jesus show us someone that needs our help or something that He is calling us to, but we feel like the problem or task is too big to be solved by us? We say back to Him: “Impossible!” Then, Jesus asks us: “What do you have?” Reminding us that what we have been given is meant to be offered back to Him to fulfill His purpose. We are not expected to solve the big problem on our own or tackle the seemingly impossible task alone. If we offer it to Him, He will multiply our gift of self, time, money, etc. in order to help us achieve whatever He has called us to.
He will be grateful for the gifts we are now offering for others and multiply them in ways we cannot imagine. And once we continue giving all that He has multiplied until whatever or whoever is satisfied, He will have multiplied so much as to leave us with more than we had.
For when we give gifts to Jesus, we are never giving away all we had to give. We are instead trusting in His power and love and He turns our giving into receiving.
What happens with the seven baskets left over? We do not know. The Gospel simply tells us there was plenty left. We can assume it’s not left behind, wasted, or unused, but instead is shared with others during other parts of their journey or enjoyed by the disciples once the crowds have dispersed.
God makes it so we will continually have something to offer even when it feels like we have nothing that will solve the problem. When it seems like everyone is satisfied, we will be left with more than enough to satisfy ourselves and share with others in the future. Jesus constantly invites us to look inside ourselves and asks: “What do you have?” Then we have to ask ourselves whether or not we are willing to give what we have so that He can multiply it for the good of others.
Daily Reading
Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Reading 1 Zechariah 2:14-17 Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion! See, I am coming to dwell among you, says the LORD. Many nations shall join themselves to the LORD on…
Saint of the Day
St. Juan Diego
St. Juan Diego
Feast date: Dec 09
On Dec. 9, Roman Catholics celebrate St. Juan Diego, the indigenous Mexican Catholic convert whose encounter with the Virgin Mary began the Church’s devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe.In 1474, 50 years before receiving the name Juan Diego at his baptism, a boy named Cuauhtlatoatzin — “singing eagle” — was born in the Anahuac Valley of present-day Mexico. Though raised according to the Aztec pagan religion and culture, he showed an unusual and mystical sense of life even before hearing the Gospel from Franciscan missionaries.In 1524, Cuauhtlatoatzin and his wife converted and entered the Catholic Church. The farmer now known as Juan Diego was committed to his faith, often walking long distances to receive religious instruction. In December of 1531, he would be the recipient of a world-changing miracle.On Dec. 9, Juan Diego was hurrying to Mass to celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. But the woman he was heading to church to celebrate came to him instead.In the native Aztec dialect, the radiant woman announced herself as the “ever-perfect holy Mary, who has the honor to be the mother of the true God.”“I am your compassionate Mother, yours and that of all the people that live together in this land,” she continued, “and also of all the other various lineages of men.”She asked Juan Diego to make a request of the local bishop. “I want very much that they build my sacred little house here” — a house dedicated to her son Jesus Christ, on the site of a former pagan temple, that would “show him” to all Mexicans and “exalt him” throughout the world.She was asking a great deal of a native farmer. Not surprisingly, his bold request met with skepticism from Bishop Juan de Zumárraga. But Juan Diego said he would produce proof of the apparition, after he finished tending to his uncle whose death seemed imminent.Making his way to church on Dec. 12, to summon a priest for his uncle, Juan Diego again encountered the Blessed Virgin. She promised to cure his uncle and give him a sign to display for the bishop. On the hill where they had first met he would find roses and other flowers, though it was winter.Doing as she asked, he found the flowers and brought them back to her. The Virgin Mary then placed the flowers inside his tilma, the traditional cloak-like garment he had been wearing. She told him not to unwrap the tilma containing the flowers until he had reached the bishop.When he did, Bishop Zumárraga had his own encounter with Our Lady of Guadalupe – through the image of her that he found miraculously imprinted on the flower-filled tilma. The Mexico City basilica that now houses the tilma has become, by some estimates, the world’s most-visited Catholic shrine.The miracle that brought the Gospel to millions of Mexicans also served to deepen Juan Diego’s own spiritual life. For many years after the experience, he lived a solitary life of prayer and work in a hermitage near the church where the image was first displayed. Pilgrims had already begun flocking to the site by the time he died on Dec. 9, 1548, the 17th anniversary of the first apparition.Blessed John Paul II beatified St. Juan Diego in 1990, and canonized him in 2002.