DAILY GRACE
August 3, 2020, Monday of the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time
Scripture: Matthew 14:13-21
Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’ Jesus said to them, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’ They replied, ‘We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.’ And he said, ‘Bring them here to me.’ Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Meditation
“. . . you give them something to eat”
This was my sermon text yesterday. By placing this rural event right after his flashback to the martyrdom of John the Baptist, Matthew achieves a start contrast. Two banquets are portrayed —- one in a fortress, attended only by the elite and featuring sensuality and death; the other in the open air, attended by anyone / everyone and featuring healing and life.
Regarding this passage, which is found in all four gospels, I was drawn to Jesus’ command to his disciples: “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” The disciples show Jesus the little food they have. Acing in the role of the father of a Jewish family, Jesus takes the bread, says the blessing, breaks the bread, and hands it back to his disciples to distribute. Mysteriously there is enough bread for everyone.
Thinking of the disciples’ role in this, I remembered reading or hearing more than once that our poor prayers, our half-hearted sacrifices, our small acts of kindness can be multiplied by the Lord, as if zeroes were being added to the number I. We give our “little,” and the Lord makes that small contribution bear much fruit for his people. Jesus asks our cooperation, then he does the rest, just as he did with the disciples.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, help me to remember the importance of my small contributions, whatever they may be. When overcome by “weariness in well-doing,” I want to keep in mind the disciples, who, until everyone had been fed, kept distributing the bread you had blessed and broken for the crowd. Help me to realize that the little I do has a much fuller meaning than I could ever imagine — a meaning I may never understand in this life, but will make me very happy in the next. Don’t let me get discouraged, thinking I’m not getting anywhere. Help me to move ahead with purer motives and a lighter heart. Amen.
Contemplation
“They need not go away.”