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Connections&
August 4, 2002--18th Sunday of the Year
The disciples approached Jesus and said, "Dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves." Jesus said, " There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourself."
Taking the five loaves and two fish, and looking up to heaven, Jesus said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds.
Matthew 14: 13-21
' Take...bless...break...give... '
She had just retired after 40 years in the classroom. Aftera year of traveling, gardening and reading, she found she missed the kids. So she volunteered to tutor a couple of afternoons a week. One student was having a particular ly hard time with equations. So the retired teacher mad some time available to work with the student after school and, together, they struggled through the mystery of mathematics. She was as excited as a first-year teacher when the student received and 'A' on his next math test.
After graduation, a classmate of theirs became a missionary priest, assigned to a poor barrio in Brazil. He would write to his friends back home, telling them of the wonderful people in his parish and their struggles. His friends, in turn, set up a fund for the padre and organized drives to build a new well for his parish, stock the clinic and school with supplies and take care of repairs on the village church and school. He is grateful for their help; his friends are honored to be part of such holy work.
Every summer the counselors stay a few extra days for the annual "Special Campers' Weekend." After a long summer working at the camp and before returning to school, many of the counselors happily give their time to give kids with cancer, kids confined to wheelchairs, kids with all kinds of mental and physical challenges a camping experience just like "normal " kids. It's the best summer of these kids' lives and, the exhausted counselors willreadily tell you, the best summer of theirs, too.
CONNECTION: Today's Gospel was especially cherished by the early Church who saw in Jesus' feeding of the multitudes the precursor to the Sacrament of the Eucharist. We, too, can perform wonders in our own time and place by imitating those four decisive "Eucharistic" verbs of Jesus: to take, bless, break, give--taking from what we have, blessing it by offering it to others in God's spirit of love, breaking it from our own needs and interests for the sake of others, and giving it with joy-filled gratitude to the God who has blessed us with so much. Christ calls us to become a Eucharistic people--to become the Eucharist we have received for others in our generosity, compassion and work for reconciliation and justice.
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