Homily for Monday, August 5, 2019

Different people react in different ways to the same crises. At the sight of a large number of hungry people, Jesus responds quite differently than His disciples. They wanted Him to send the crowd away; He wanted them to feed the people. Even though they protested that there was nowhere near enough food, Jesus insisted, and they brought Him the little food they could find. With that little bit of food, with such few resources, the entire crowd, numbering thousands, was fed. 

Jesus will always encourage us to offer some service to others, even when our resources are few. If we are generous with what we have, the Lord will surprise us and show us just how much He can do with our meager offerings. He can work wonders through the ordinary resources and gifts we’ve got. But we need to do our part, as did the disciples in our Gospel passage, but God takes our offerings and does even more.

God has chosen to make us His instruments in the world. If we are unwilling to do the little we can with what little we have, the Lord’s outreach to others is comes up short. Our strengths and resources, however small they may seem, help to continue God’s good work among us.