A God of Abundance

“On this mountain,” we read in today’s first reading, Is 25: 6-10a, the Lord of hosts will provide for all peoples…”   In the Gospel, Jesus ascends a mountain.  A great crowd brings the sick, the deaf, the blind, the lame, those with deformities and many other forms of illness to Him. He heals them all!  Imagine the excitement of that crowd! They stay with Jesus for three days.  Jesus “is moved with pity” and is worried that if they are sent away without something to eat that they will collapse on the way. So He inquires of the disciples if anyone has any food.  He is told that one of the persons in the crowd has a few fish and seven loaves (seven in biblical parlance means an abundance—enough for everyone). With those seven loaves and few fish, Jesus feeds the crowd and has seven baskets leftover!  Jesus is the generosity of God, the compassion of God, the abundance of God.

God is no different in our lives today than He was when He walked the streets and roads of Galilee, Capernaum, Nazareth, or Jerusalem as God Incarnate in Christ Jesus, our Lord.  As then, so now.  He walks among us, beside us, and behind us. He has pity on us as He did on the crowd. He feeds us with an abundance of the finest wheat and the choicest wine in every Eucharist and in our sharing of our “bread” and “wine”  when we, in turn, break open our lives in loving service, when we are being attentive to the needs of others.  God knows when we are ready to collapse along the way. He responds to our needs in a way  that outweighs our response to the needs of others. It is for that reason that we are able to be good stewards in sharing our goods with others.

Every time I  am ready "to collapse" and when I ascend the mountain of the Lord to lay my "deformities"at the Lord's feet, I experience His pity.  Every morning, also, I wake up restored.  Throughout the night, the Lord has pity on me and restores my drooping spirits and replenishes my weary body. Yes,  the Lord of hosts is moved with pity but not only moved emotionally but takes action on our behalf day and night.

 

 

Sunday Eucharistic celebration:

Today Christians throughout the world are worshipping in community and and receiving the Eucharist.  I am in a foreign country today. After Mass, the Sisters I am visiting greeted many of the parishioners. I watched or "hid" behind one of them I knew and who, at the time, was not mingling.  I could have continued to withdraw, like a small child hiding behind and clinging to the back of its mother's leg.  I could have continued to use the excuse "I don't know anyone" or "I am shy," and not, following the Eucharistic celebration, "broken bread" with anyone.  Finally, either moved by my discomfort or by the Spirit, I reached out and began to greet some of the parishioners.  It was only then that, like Jesus, I shared myself with others, as Jesus shared Himself with me in the sacrament.  Is it possible that the only way a sacrament is "consummated" is when I interact with another human being and not stay locked up in my own security or fears?  And is it possible that the Word of God that I had just heard and which I reflected upon earlier in meditative prayer only bears fruit when I share with others and that, without interaction with those with whom I live and work, the "seed" of the Word within me remains dormant.  Does my faith, then, not grow?

What's your experience of how you "consummate" your faith?