Thursday, August 08, 2024

WE ARE THE ANSWER TO OUR PRAYERS

There is a virus that has killed more people than any pandemic. It is hunger. And the "vaccine" has always been available. It is food. Historians tell us that up to half of the population during Jesus’s time was slowly starving to death. This deadly virus has only ever affected the poor. The rich are immune to it.

The story of the Feeding of the 5000 reminded us that one poor and hungry child's offering of five barley loaves and two fish brought about the miracle that fed the multitudes.

This Sunday's lection reminds us not to focus on the manna, nor on the bread and fish, but on the source of the offering: The poor child; God; and Jesus who says, "I Am the Bread of Life."

My friends, it is time we realize that, like the child with five barley loaves and two fish, like Jesus, we are the answer to many of the world's pleas. And the gifts we can offer today, right now, are more life-giving than the ones we plan to give tomorrow.

We often forget that we play the primary role in the realization of our dreams, that we are the change that we desperately need, that we are the answer to many of our prayers, and that the tomorrow we always look forward to is already here, since today is the tomorrow we prayed for yesterday!

*image from Christ Episcopal Church at Eagle Lake. 


THE SONG OF MARY

Mary's Magnificat is probably one of the most powerful prophetic passages in the New Testament. This young woman's God scatters the ...