Gospel Reflection for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 29th. July – The generosity of God…
We all love a good meal. We look forward to any meal, specially if it is one that celebrates a special occasion or event. People gather, there is food and drink; there may be singing dancing; stories are told and memories are created. Meals bring people together.
Meals, food and celebrating are a central theme and message of readings this Sunday. We are told that Elisha, a man of God, is brought bread, the first fruits, twenty barely loaves and fresh grain.’ On receiving all this food, he asks that it is given away to feed the people. But those with him asked how such little food will feed so many people. Again he insists that the food is share out saying, ‘the Lord says this, they will eat and some left over.’ The food was served, everyone had plenty to eat and there was food left over.
This scene is repeated in the gospel. After Jesus has spoken to the people and healed those who were sick; Jesus asked his disciples to feed the crowd. They said that it would cost far too much to feed to such a large crowd. But Andrew said that there was a boy who had a five loaves of bread and two fish with him. But again the disciples questioned how such little food would feed so many. Jesus took the food, blest it, gave thanks to God for it and shared it out so that everyone present had more than enough to eat. This miracle shows us the generosity, bountifulness of God. As the Psalm Twenty Three reminds us; the Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want… the Lord has prepare a banquet for me..’
When we gather to celebrate the Eucharist with each other, we experience the love and generosity that God has for each of us. We present God with simple and ordinary bread and wine. God accepts, blesses them and through the power of the Holy Spirit they are changed into the Body and Blood of Jesus. Then they are freely given back to us by God to feed, nourish and strengthen us.
However, just as the boy in in the gospel offered his ordinary fish and bread to Jesus, today we are asked to offer God our ordinary lives just as they are. God will accept us, bless, change and transform so that we can offers ourselves to each other in love and service.
We are called to encouraged to nourish each other by the way we speak to and treat each other. We leave the church having being fed and nourished by the Lord so we can care for and support each other.
We may think our own lives are too ordinary for the Lord to be concerned about them. Just as Jesus took the ordinary bread and fish from the boy, so too the same Lord takes our apparently simple and ordinary lives and if we let him, will do amazing and remarkable things for us and through us.
This week, let us offer God our lives so that we too will changed and transformed in ways we can’t even imagine.
Michael Moore OMI
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