The Smaller The Gift, The Larger The Miracle

“When Jesus saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd.” Right of the bat we learn what moves the heart of Jesus: vastness or enormity and being without a shepherd. The hugeness of my lack draws him closer to me because of his merciful heart. When he realized that they had no shepherd, he immediately began to teach them many things. In my times of feeling far away or lost, he is able to teach me many things because it is in those times that I am searching for answers, and my searching makes me receptive to his teachings. When God’s merciful heart is engaged, in our huge lack and searching need, He just loves to go big. Jesus’ disciples were overwhelmed by the size of the crowd and wanted practicality to kick in. It’s getting late, let’s dismiss everyone so they can all go home and get some dinner and some sleep and we will come back tomorrow. Raise your hand if you are a “fixer.” You see a problem and you come up with 100 practical solutions for said problem. Jesus’ first miracle today is to cure that “fixer” thing in his disciples so as to activate their faith in the impossible. 

“Go get them some food yourselves.” How many times has Jesus answered my prayer in a way that seemed ridiculous? They responded with a clarifying question, “Are we to buy a hundred days’ wages worth of food and give it to them to eat?” We get to dialogue with God when He asks us to move. He loves to teach us when we are hungry. “How many loaves do you have? Go out and see.” The gift is already with you, but you need to go out and see it. In their obedience, they brought him back five loaves and two fish. This probably made Jesus so happy because the smaller the gift the larger the miracle. Let me say that again…the smaller the gift the larger the miracle. With their offering, he sat them down in small groups, and after people took their places, he looked up, he blessed their offering, he broke their offering, and he gave their offering back to them magnified in mercy. Mic drop. 

Our hunger, our vastness, and our smallness, move the heart of the one who loves loves loves to save us. In our deficiency, he longs to take what we have and increase it beyond what we ever thought possible. When we take our place among others who are also hungry, the use of our gifts multiplies, but only after it is blessed and broken. This is church: the hungry, the shepherd-less, the small, the lacking, the broken, the lost, and the searching. As we approach the altar of a new day, may we let our meager offering be amplified in His grace, and may our hunger for more of Him be what moves His heart to teach us many things. When God’s merciful heart is engaged, in our huge lack and searching need, He just loves to go big, and it is well with my soul. 

Reading 11 JN 4:7-10

Beloved, let us love one another,
because love is of God;
everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.
Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.
In this way the love of God was revealed to us:
God sent his only-begotten Son into the world
so that we might have life through him.
In this is love:
not that we have loved God, but that he loved us
and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.

Responsorial Psalm PS 72:1-2, 3-4, 7-8

R. (see 11)  Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
O God, with your judgment endow the king,
and with your justice, the king's son;
He shall govern your people with justice
and your afflicted ones with judgment.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
The mountains shall yield peace for the people,
and the hills justice.
He shall defend the afflicted among the people,
save the children of the poor.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
Justice shall flower in his days,
and profound peace, till the moon be no more.
May he rule from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.

Alleluia LK 4:18

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
The Lord has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor
and to proclaim liberty to captives.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel MK 6:34-44

When Jesus saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them,
for they were like sheep without a shepherd;
and he began to teach them many things. 
By now it was already late and his disciples approached him and said,
"This is a deserted place and it is already very late. 
Dismiss them so that they can go 
to the surrounding farms and villages
and buy themselves something to eat." 
He said to them in reply,
"Give them some food yourselves." 
But they said to him,
"Are we to buy two hundred days' wages worth of food
and give it to them to eat?" 
He asked them, "How many loaves do you have?  Go and see." 
And when they had found out they said,
"Five loaves and two fish." 
So he gave orders to have them sit down in groups on the green grass. 
The people took their places in rows by hundreds and by fifties. 
Then, taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, 
he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples
to set before the people;
he also divided the two fish among them all. 
They all ate and were satisfied. 
And they picked up twelve wicker baskets full of fragments
and what was left of the fish. 
Those who ate of the loaves were five thousand men.