A miraculous abundance

My reflection today is about miraculous abundance; where there was little, now there is much.  

We pray these days for God’s presence in our times of need. We pray and let what we consider small and insignificant to be placed in His hands and distributed to those in need.  We pray knowing of God’s abundance in being faithful, provident and nourishing in our lives.

We can learn much from Elisha’s actions in the story of the multiplication of twenty barley loaves to feed one hundred people suffering from the famine (2Kings 4:42-44).  He insisted that his servant take the loaves and share them even though they didn’t appear to be enough.  Elisha promised that there would be more than enough and there would be leftovers as God had promised.  Elisha had received his blessing from God and walked around sharing it in plenty.  

And in John’s Gospel we learn that Jesus, being the Bread of Life, is both the Provider and the provided (John 6:1-15).  The crowd has followed Jesus and the apostles to a deserted place and the journey there has rendered them hungry.  All heck is about to breakout if something isn’t done.  The apostles don’t have enough money to buy for this crowd so that each could have even a little bit.  There’s a tension. They have only five loaves and two fish, “what are these among so many?”

Five thousand people reclined and had their fill of bread and fish, so there were fragments to be collected.  Because of this sign of abundance, the people wanted to promote Him as King so that they would never have to search for satisfaction and fullness again.  Jesus, though, slipped away and left them to experience a different type of hunger, a hunger for His continued presence.  He is nourishing, available, familiar, and a reminder of the abiding gift of manna when the Israelites were wandering in the desert.  I think I can relate to this type of hunger when I miss Mass or especially the Eucharist, which is also a miracle of multiplication that feeds and nourishes me in my daily life.

I was thinking that the five loaves and two fish are like our prayers.  Jesus takes our offering.  He then answers those prayers and adds a “dash” of mercy to (we hope) bring us into His presence.  We have to remember that even after we realize that He has answered our prayers, we must continue to pray or “gather the fragments, so that nothing will be wasted”.  He will use them to nourish others who may not yet know they need His help.