THANK YOU **** THANK YOU VERY, VERY MUCH

John, the Evangelist, tells us that ‘Jesus gave thanks to the Father’. Some might rightly ask, ‘What need does Christ have of such thanksgiving, of ceremonies? Jesus IS God, He needs no permission to act, to perform miracles, so He is not bound to thank anyone. He spoke and things were made, people were cured, the sea calmed down and the winds obeyed His word. Why then, does He not simply command that the loaves be multiplied, and so be it?’

Jesus never needed to say a single word. He could have multiplied the loaves, without uttering a single syllable; it was enough ‘to will it’. Yet, Christ wanted to thank God the Father, and so He did. Consequently, a reason there must be. Christ thought it good to make use of the local ceremonies, to follow the Jewish rites, it was a formal practice, to let the crowd know that He was not teaching, addressing some other god, but the One, True Creator of heaven and earth.

More important still; He performed miracles not by trickery, through some magic formula, but by the power of the One and True God. Quack doctors abounded in great numbers, in the days of Jesus, to the detriment of the sick. And this is the message Christ wanted to pass over to the people. We nowhere read in the Gospel that a single sick person ever approached the Lord ‘In faith’, and was turned away, or remained without being healed.

We do not have on record all the miracles performed by Jesus. To date only about thirty-five miracles are mentioned in the Gospel, but Saint John tells us that if every act done by Christ, every word spoken, every deed performed, every miracle worked … the world would not hold the great number of books.

Christ wanted to teach the value of ‘thanksgiving’, and the power contained therein, in the fact that someone simply gives thanks for a good turn. In the process of His ‘Thanksgiving’ the five loaves and two fishes were blessed … increased and multiplied to such an extent that five thousand men were fed generously. Nowadays it is calculated that, including the women and children, the number must have been over nine thousand. We have to mention the twelve baskets collected from the left-overs.

Christ gave thanks to God the Father and thus multiplied a few loaves, in order to teach us that we do not normally experience multiplications in our daily affairs unless we first ‘thank God’ for the few or little things and use them, or share them with others, with gratitude.

Was the number ‘FIVE’ (loaves), and the ‘TWO’ (fishes), purely incidental? Some Biblical Scholars see a hidden message in the FIVE and TWO. As the thousands were fed with the five loaves and two fishes, we are spiritually fed … and saved, by the FIVE wounds of Jesus. The TWO has various suggestions; it can either be the TWO natures of Christ; the Divine Nature and the human nature. And it is worth remembering that FISH is ICHTHUS in Greek, which is a word made up of the first letters of the statement: Jesus Christ, Son of God Saviour.

SAINT MARY MAGDALEN

Mariam, alias Saint Mary of Magdala, hence Magdalen was the first to see the Risen Lord.

Mariam was the first Missionary. It is recorded in the Gospel that the Risen Lord commissioned her to go and tell ‘my brothers’, (the words of the Master), that I AM Risen.

Why wonder? Some ask why of all the Disciples and Apostles, a woman, an ex-sinner was chosen to be the first Missionary, and the first to see the Risen Lord?

A reason there must be; Mariam must have had strong faith that the Master will rise again, whilst all the rest doubted, at some point or other.

Besides let’s not forget Christ’s words about her: “She was forgiven ‘much’ because she loved ‘much’.

The word ‘much’ holds the key to that profound declaration of Christ; He did not say ‘because she lived ‘many’. The word ‘much’ is boundless in amount, and that is the way we have to love God.

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY

This was one of my favourite quotes, when, as a boy I tried to prove it wrong, it was a misconception. But as St.Paul says when you are a boy you think like a boy, but when you grow up you will think like an adult. Next Sunday’s Gospel Text reminded me of this quote. As normal human beings, when the disciples returned from their mission, they were completely exhausted. They reported their experiences to the Master.

As a wise Master, Jesus invited them to get away from it all, for a while, and suggested that they should all cross over the lake and settle in a quiet and remote place. They certainly needed a rest. It was only a four hour trip to the other side of the lake. But if one had to go on foot one had to cover ten miles. In case of a under current in the sea the trip might take longer.

As expected, on their arrival, Jesus and company found a sizeable crowd waiting for them. Jesus felt pity on them for He realised that they were in search of the Truth. He imagined them a ‘flock without a shepherd’. That was the end of their ‘day off’, before it ever started. Apostolate can have no holiday so easily. Yet, having said that, one can’t work without having a periodic rest. REST, but here lies the secret of all this business.

A true disciple takes his ‘rest’ when meeting with the Lord. It is similar to the rhythm of ‘life’. We cannot work if we do not sleep. A true disciple can never perform his mission, his apostolate if he does not ‘rest’ in the Lord, he needs to constantly ‘recharge’ his batteries. The problem in ‘the meeting with the Lord’ is caused by our approach; we need to give an opportunity to the Master to speak to us. We must get used to ‘listening’ in a quiet atmosphere … listen, listen. The Master will certainly contact us, if we give Him a chance. Do not ask how, when or where. Try to listen to that beautiful hymn called: “Be Still, in the Presence of the Lord”.

We have to keep in mind His words, He pitied the crowd and imagined them like a flock without a shepherd. That means a lot, there’s a profound meaning in that thought. What would happen to the flock without  the shepherd? They certainly would not have anyone to provide food and water; no one to defend them; no place where to shelter and sleep; no one to lead them to pastures green. Apply the same imagery to us, to all humans. How could we go along in life?

No wonder the problems faced in our culture, for we have abandoned God. Yes many are those who have created their own god (with a small letter). One need not go in front of a mirror and make a solemn declaration: ‘You are my god’, yet one’s behaviour in life is tantamount to that declaration. Only in the company of Jesus we can go about everywhere feeling safe, secure and nourished.

LOST IN THE DESERT … LOOKING FOR SAND

It very rarely happens that I start reading a book, and find myself deeply immersed, involved in the contents, the arguments, or maybe the reasoning of the author … that I find it impossible to let go that book. This is happening to me right now; I am completely ‘lost in a desert’ whilst trying to enter Saint Augustine’s frame of mind, when he wrote his “Confessions”. I suggest one and all, not to read the book, but to digest this work and try to follow Augustine’s treatise on God.

I would like to reproduce some paragraphs from Section Two:                               “How shall I call upon my God, my God and my Lord? For when I call Him, I ask Him to come into myself. And what room is there in me, where my Lord can come – God who made heaven and earth? Is there anything in me, O Lord my God, that can contain You? Indeed, do heaven and earth, which You have created, and in which You made me, contain You?

Or, since nothing could exist without You, does every existing thing contain You? Why, then, do I ask that You to come into me, since I too exist – I, who could not exist if You were not in me? Why do I say this? Because even if I were in hell, yet You would be there also. For if I go down into hell, You would be there too. I could not exist then, O my God, could not exist at all, unless You were in me.

Or should I not rather say, I could not exist, unless I were in You, from whom all things, by whom are all things, and in whom are all things. Even so, Lord, even so. Where do I call You to come, since I am in You? Or whence can you enter into me? For where beyond heaven and earth could I go that my God might come there into me, Who said: ‘I fill the heavens and the earth.’ ”

We have enough ‘Food for Thought’ for a whole lifetime. For this reason I wrote in the first paragraph, ‘I am lost in a desert … looking for sand’, but I am completely surrounded by sand, I’m breathing, tasting, smelling sand. But of this I am not conscious. DO take time to digest what Saint Augustine wrote. It’s pure reasoning with natural conclusions. YET, how much do we miss of all this truth, in the rush and tension of every day life?