Multiplication of the loaves

Monday, August 7, 2017
18th Week in
Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Num 11:4b-15
Gospel: Matthew 14:13-21
(…) Late in the afternoon, his disciples came to him and said, “We are in a lonely place and it is now late. You should send these people away, so they can go to the villages and buy something for themselves to eat.”
But Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away; you give them something to eat.” They answered, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fishes.” Jesus said to them, “Bring them here to me.”
Then he made everyone sit down on the grass. He took the five loaves and the two fishes, raised his eyes to heaven, pronounced the blessing, broke the loaves and handed them to the disciples to distribute to the people. And they all ate, and everyone had enough; then the disciples gathered up the leftovers, filling twelve baskets. About five thousand men had eaten there besides women and children.
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
Here is a thought -provoking quote to lighten your day: “For attractive lips, speak words of kindness; for lovely eyes, seek out the good in people; for slim figure, share your food with the hungry” (Anonymous). The last tip is closer to reality. We eat less when we share our food with others. We get slimmer as a consequence. But charity is not about getting slimmer. At the back of our mind as we share food is not the slimmer body but the Last Judgment scenario where sheep are separated from goats on the basis of charity. Intending to get to heaven, one won’t think twice about giving the lion’s share of his food to the poor even when it would mean eating less or fasting now and then.
This “quest-for-heaven” type of spirituality may sound good, but not good enough for a Master who wants us to be perfect just as our heavenly Father is perfect. Heaven becomes secondary to a Christian who responds to this call to perfection. His concern is to love God who deserves all his love. Thus, instead of taking care of the poor to get to heaven, he loves them in order to reach out to the “Jesus-in-them”. He reaches out not only when he can give the lion’s share, but even when there is hardly anything to spare. He takes inspiration from today’s Gospel scene where five loaves and two fish fed more than five thousand people after God deemed it timely to intervene.
Because God’s counterpart is in good measure, pressed down and flowing over, no one is too poor to share. Poverty is a poor excuse. With higher motives, one can always be magnanimous in bringing out the best for his neighbors, whether he gets slimmer or not in the process. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM
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