Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”

In one of the stories about how Jesus multiplied loaves and fishes (John 6:1-15), a boy with five loaves and a couple of dried fish is pivotal. These are the loaves and the fish that Jesus multiplies. One commentator says we could imagine the boy going home that evening to his mother and saying: “Wait'll you hear what Jesus and me did today!”

Folksy and slightly boastful as it might seem, the remark capsulizes a basic truth of the Gospel story. Put into the hands of the Lord, the little we have can be made to do much good. Or, from another viewpoint, God does not do great good for the world or the human race apart from some contribution on our part.

If we decide we have too little to give, we prevent anything from being done. We don't have to be a Warren Buffet or an oil company CEO to have something God can use here and now. What is essential is our willingness in faith to offer what we do have, not to wait till it makes the ten o'clock news.

Our work for an organization, our contribution to a relief fund, our offering of talents for the parish can be multiplied, expanded by God to do much for others. Better to offer ourselves and what we have here and now than wait for some improbable future when we'll have millions to give.

If we offer our bread and fish now, Jesus knows what he will do, as the Gospel says, even though we can't understand it any more than the disciples did. But, wait till you see what Jesus can do with you or me and what we have.

Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”

Reply to Fr. Don at: DTalafous@csbsju.edu

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