The Catholic Calendar for Monday, August 7, 2006
Monday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time
St. Sixtus II, pope and martyr
and companion martyrs
St. Cajetan, priest

Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Jeremiah 28:1-17
Psalm 119:29, 43, 79, 80, 95, 102
Matthew 14:13-21

A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:

"They all ate and were satisfied . . . ." (Matthew 14:20)

There is always hunger. Hunger of the body. Hunger of the soul. The feeding of the 5000 reveals the compassion and warm humanity of Jesus as He responds to the needs of ordinary people. Jesus lived as one of us and understood our suffering.

In this week's gospel reading we read, "When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself." Jesus needed to be alone for a while to grieve. The death of John the Baptist caused Him to be filled with sorrow. Just like us when a loved one dies, Jesus too had to take time to mourn.

When we give what little we have, God performs miracles and multiplies our offerings until the fragments that are left over are more than sufficient to satisfy our own deep hunger. Jesus came to be our food. He came to be humbled and broken. He came that we might take Him into ourselves, to become what He is, and thereby to have life. But before we eat, we must first recognize our own hunger, the longing in our hearts, the emptiness in our souls that nothing can fill. We cannot have desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists.

So, if we find in ourselves a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we are made for another world--the Kingdom of God who created us and continually lives within us.

- Anne
(anne97 at gmail dot com)