A boy with food

Last week we saw Jesus arriving at a lonely place to spend time with his apostles and instead found a great multitude of people. He had compassion on them and began to teach them many things. When Jesus finished talking to them the apostles hoped that he was going to send them away. But instead, Jesus told them to feed the whole crowd first. After looking after their souls, now he looked after their bodies. Jesus gives us a good example. Our souls are more important than our bodies. Our bodies are recyclable; our souls are eternal. We normally think too much about our bodies. We assume that the body is the container for the soul, but it is the other way around: the soul contains the body.

The apostles had a problem: they had to feed a big crowd without resources. Phillip said they had only 200 denaries in the money box, not enough to give them a morsel each. Andrew found a boy with some food. We too come across problems in our daily lives. Some of them difficult ones. We use our talents to find solutions. We can ask God to help us but we cannot expect God to fix all our problems. Once a man was asking God to win the lottery; an angel appeared to him and told him to at least buy a ticket.

Many people among the crowd had a bit of food when the apostles tried to solve the problem, but only one boy offered them his lunch. These people thought that if they kept their food, at least they would have had enough for themselves. It was useless to offer what they had for a huge number of people. We don’t know the name of this boy. We only know that he gave his lunch to Jesus. The boy knew that his lunch wasn’t much, but he gave it to Jesus regardless. Without it maybe Jesus wouldn’t had performed the miracle.

Why did Jesus ask for some food if he could have performed the miracle out of nothing? Because he wants us to cooperate with him. Jesus wants to use our little humanity to perform his miracles. Even though we are nothing compared to God, and he doesn’t need us, he wants us to feel useful. It is like when a father asks his little son to give him a hand with whatever he is doing.

This is the only miracle described by the four evangelists. They were so impressed that they all wanted to tell the world about it. Food was very important in ancient times. I imagine the boy looking with curiosity at what Jesus was going to do with his five sandwiches of bread and fish. He put them in a basket, where people couldn’t see them, blessed them, and began to give them to the people. You could see the eyes of the boy, open wide without blinking, counting; they became big like plates, when more than five appeared. There were thousands of them! He ran back home shouting, to tell his mum: My bread! My fish! He brought her some samples, beautiful bread, just baked; fresh fish, still moving.

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Come away by yourselves

Last week we saw Jesus sending the apostles two by two to preach the Gospel, to announce the kingdom of heaven. Today we see them coming back, excited by all the good things that happened to them, the people they healed and the devils they cast out. They couldn’t stop talking about their adventures. They were all talking at the same time. Jesus realised that they needed a break. You can imagine the atmosphere of Jesus group, people coming and going all the time. We can see here the intensity of Jesus’ ministry. Such was his dedication to the souls that Saint Mark twice mentions that his disciples did not even have time to eat. The same should happens to us: we don’t have time to rest. Saint Josemaria says that “whoever gives himself to work for Christ, cannot expect to have a free moment, for even to rest is not to do nothing: it is to relax, with activities that require less effort.” We too are busy, fulfilling our duties, doing God’s work.

Benedict XVI likes to remember his favourite anecdote about John Paul II: “When the Pope was in Munich on his first trip to Germany, I saw what an incredible itinerary he had, that he was continuously busy from first thing in the morning till last thing at night. Then I thought to myself: This really shouldn’t be done! You have to introduce a little rest. I then ensured him there would be a nice lunch break. He had only just gone at lunchtime when he called me, saying I should come up quickly. When I came up, he had just prayed with his breviary. I said: ‘Holy Father, you simply must rest now!’ ‘I can rest in eternity,’ he said.”

We are busy doing many things, but sometimes we don’t do what we are supposed to be doing. We tend to be lazy and we spend our time doing the things we enjoy. Business’s collapse when people don’t do what it is important, but busy themselves in doing the things they like. We should tackle the difficult jobs first in the morning and leave the easy ones for when we are tired. We need to have our priorities right.

Jesus realised that the apostles needed to have a rest. From time to time Jesus used to take them away to have a break, to wind down, to be together by themselves and to pass his message to them. We too need a rest. Saint Augustine says that “a cord cannot endure constant tension, and an archer needs to loosen the ends of a bow if he wants to be able to draw it again later on.” We cannot forget that we have a limited amount of energy, and we all need to recover. God, after creating the universe, he rested on the seventh day to give us an example.

When they arrived at the place where they were going, they met a great multitude of people. We can imagine the disappointment of the apostles, looking forward to a few days with Jesus alone, when they encountered this big crowd. They knew what was going to happen. The Gospel says that Jesus’ “heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things.” It is beautiful to see Jesus reaction, how Jesus’ heart felt the need of his people. The apostles learned a good practical lesson they never forgot. All the readings of today’s Mass are centred on Jesus the Good Shepherd. He is the one who says to us: “Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest.” Only with him we can find true rest.

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Two by two apostles

Last week Saint Paul told us about the thorn in our flesh, a reminder of our fallen nature. This week in his letter to the Ephesians he tells us about our dignity: “He chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.” There is always the danger of falling into one extreme or the other: to think that either we are hopeless or we are another god. Our Christian faith help us to keep the balance: we are inclined to evil, but God can help us to become holy. We are all called to holiness and if we don’t achieve it, it is because deep down we don’t want to, or we want to follow our own devices or desires.

Pope Leo the Great reminds us of this reality: “Christian, remember your dignity, and now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return by sin to your former base condition. Bear in mind who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Do not forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of God’s kingdom. Through the sacrament of baptism you have become a temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not drive away so great a guest by evil conduct and become again a slave to the devil, for your liberty was bought by the blood of Christ.” Through our Baptism we have become a new creation, we belong to God. He reminds us all the time: “You are mine, you belong to me.”

In today’s Gospel we see Jesus sending his apostles two by two, to preach the Gospel, heal the people and cast out devils. The same thing he has done with us. He has placed us in this world, appointed us apostles through our Baptism and sent us to share our faith with others. The Gospel of today is a reminder of our responsibility to bring others to Christ. It is a good moment today to ask ourselves how we are fulfilling this task: Do we think in our daily lives in these terms? Are we aware that through our example we are giving witness to our faith?

Jesus gave specific instructions to his apostles: “He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick.” Why is this? Because there is no time. We have to be on the move. We come from God and we are going back to God. We are pilgrims, travelers, we are passing by. When you look at Jesus in the Gospel, he is always moving from one place to the other. He never stays in one place for too long. He wants to reach as many people as possible, to share the good news with the crowds, with every person. The same should happen to us.

Nothing should separate us or distract us from our mission. We need to feel the sense of urgency the Gospel give us. We were born naked and we cannot take anything with us. Nothing should slow us down. We cannot go to heaven alone. We need to bring with us the people God has placed close to us. Let us pray to see how we can become better apostles, to discover the obstacles or the barriers that don’t let us see what God wants us to do now.

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