More Than Enough
In the Gospel, we find Jesus weary and sad after learning of the death of John the Baptist. He is going apart to rest. When Jesus gets where he is going, he finds the crowds are there ahead of Him.
Jesus has pity on them and begins to teach and heal them. As it gets late, the disciples remind Jesus that He needs to send the crowds away. It is already late, and they need to get something to eat. Jesus’ response is, “Give them something to eat, yourselves.” Jesus’ words are both literal and foreshadowing.
Literally, he tells them they can feed the crowd with the 5 loaves and the 2 fish. And they do. Figuratively, he says they will feed with their lives, the people they serve after His death. And they do.
Mostly though, whether literal or figurative, whether for then or now, this is a common theme. Jesus is telling the disciples and us that he will take whatever meager gifts we bring, and He will make them enough if we only trust Him.
I can’t tell you how many times, in my life, I have faced a problem and felt incapable of solving it. I did not think my ability or skills would allow me to do what was being asked of me. The time that comes most dramatically to mind was in the early 1990s. I was the principal of Seton Catholic High School in Plattsburgh, NY. I received a call in the early evening that one of my sophomores, a 15-year-old boy, had killed himself. I said goodbye to that boy at 5 PM after he finished cross country practice, and I had no idea anything was wrong. By 6:30PM, he was dead. The next day, I was going to have to walk into school and look into the eyes of 350 high school students and tell them Sean was dead. Then, I would need to try and help them make sense of it. How does one make sense of the incomprehensible?
The next days were a whirlwind. Dealing with the students, helping the family who had lost their son, taking the entire school to the wake and funeral, and preaching a homily that somehow needed to console. It was beyond me. I was weary, and it was more than I was prepared to handle.
I placed it in God’s hands and asked Him to show me what to do next, simply how to take the next step. I begged God to help me know what to say and how to help heal our broken and wounded community. God did what I asked. He gave me the words and the strength to get through those days and the coming weeks. I doubt Sean’s family ever healed. Our school community did recover, and we were able to come to a place of acceptance and trust in God’s love for Sean.
God took what I had and made it enough. He made it more than enough. God filled in me what was lacking. He took my simple gifts, my 2 fish and 5 loaves, and made them more than enough to begin the healing in that community’s heart.
God is there waiting to complete and fill all of us. We all sometimes feel overwhelmed with a family situation, an estrangement, a broken relationship, a child in difficulty, a death, a parent or spouse suffering from the effects of aging, or so many other hurts. God will embrace our humble efforts to make situations better. When we place our lack in His loving hands, He will make us enough. He will make us more than enough.
Be encouraged by this Gospel. It is Jesus’ command that we “give them something to eat, ourselves.” We must give healing to the broken wherever we find them. We must give food to those who hunger even when we do not know where food will come from. We must bind up and heal those wounded by our broken and suffering world, even when we are suffering ourselves.
It is not our place to judge worthiness. It is only our place to give of ourselves. Even when we feel inadequate, God will fill what is lacking in us and make us more than enough to meet the challenges of our lives and meet the challenges of our world.
In God’s Unending Love,
