In today's first reading, 2 Kings 4: 42-44, a man brings the prophet Elisha "twenty barley loaves made from first fruits and fresh grain in the ear." Elisha directs him to give the food to the people to eat. How, the man objects;; I don't have enough to feed the hundred people gathered here. "Give it to the people to eat. For thus says the Lord, 'They shall eat and there shall we some left over." Sure enough! They ate and there were leftovers. That is the kind of God who serves us and is there for us!
Jesus reveals these same attributes of God! A huge crowd followed Jesus and the disciples across the Sea of Galilee. Jesus sees the crowd approaching and says 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." In the crowd, there was a little boy who had five barley loaves and two fish. Andrew, the brother of Peter, raised the question: "...[W]hat good are these for so many?" There were about 5000 men in the crowd besides women and children. "...Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them...and also as much fish as they wanted. When they 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 the fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat."
God is a generous God, a God of plenitude, a God of sufficiency!
How trusting are you and I, especially when we believe that we do not have enough to reach out to others in their need? Do we believe that, with God's help, we will have what it takes to lift a burden from another person, to offer our help by assisting them financially or materially, giving of the little energy we do have, knowing that by being there for others the little strength we have will be multiplied a "hundredfold"? Your "two fish" or "five barley loaves" of love, of generosity, of patience goes a long way if we distribute such in faith!
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