The Boy With the Fish

 

"There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?"

                                                  John 6:9  

         

  Aside from the Resurrection, the feeding of the 5000 is the only miracle recounted in all four gospels. It is interesting to me that it is about feeding the hungry. Generally in this story and its commentary (such as the homily at today's Mass) the focus is on the apostles and their relative faith or lack of it, on their questioning. It struck me this morning that my position is more like the boy with the fish.

He didn't understand the big picture

He knew he couldn't solve the problem of 5,000 hungry people

He knew he couldn't fix the world around him

He wasn't an apostle or any sort of important official

BUT

He didn't sit quietly feeling helpless

He didn't ask questions

He did the good he could

He generously offered what little he had

From that Jesus, who is the person whose job it is to save the world, fed the multitude while the apostles did the big job of distributing. And the boy? I suspect he sat quietly while it happened,

In the great Theo-drama of salvation history past, present, and future, my role is tiny, but He expects me to do the good I can in the place where He has put me, for the people He has sent, with the gifts He has given me.

It's pretty simple in the end.

This I Believe

This I believe:

1. God is. Nothing else really matters.
2. God is love. He is the trinity of Lover, Love, Beloved in neverending exchange.
3. The logic of love is creation~the sharing of love.
4. The gap between humanity and God demanded redemption. The continued gap calls out for salvation.
5. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him, not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it...  And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

 I accept the formulation of the Nicene creed, and I choose to be a submissive daughter of the Roman Catholic church, never blind to its greed, sins, and administrative blunders, but joyful in its life in the Spirit, the beauty of its traditions, and the communion of its saints.

One in Being

...the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father.  Through him all things were made.                                                                                                 Nicene-Constantinople Creed

 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. John 1:1-3

The Trinity falls into the area of "things too wonderful for me" to understand. What I do get is that God is Love and there is a logic to the assumption that in Love there must be a lover, a beloved and the love that passes between them.  The Son, the Word is the beloved part of the one Love. 

Obviously, as John 1 shows,  Christians were clear on the "One in Being" part by the beginning of the second century AD. 

Death and Aging

Jesus, who destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel...
2 Timothy 1:10

I look at the skin on my hands and it is withering, like the leaves that are turning brown, curling up and falling to the ground. Death is heavy with me this Autumn. Is it delayed reaction to my father's death last winter? He took with him the last buffer between me and the next world. Is it the whisper of the Holy Spirit? He whispers, "Life is temporary, let go of attachment to it."

My natural reaction is rage. We are called to be more than that. Only in Jesus is there strength in the face of bodily death.