Today we remember the most famous picnic in religious history. Today’s Gospel recounts the account of Jesus feeding the five thousand with the multiplication of the loaves and the fish. I invite you to envision this well-known miracle story of Jesus feeding the five thousand people with five barley loaves and two fish in a new way.
Have you ever felt you were in the just the right place and at the right time? Maybe you didn’t recognize it then, but did afterwards. I believe that our living God sometimes places us right where we should be! Our God has a way of directing us even though we may not be aware of His hand in our lives.
Jesus is the Good Shepherd who is always concerned about people. Notice in the first part of today’s Gospel account, Jesus is concerned about the well-being of his disciples even more than the success of their mission. Jesus invites them to come away and rest for a while. Then when Jesus saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them for they were like sheep without a shepherd. Always, Jesus places people first. He wishes to the Good Shepherd of his disciples as well as the vast crowd of people. May you embrace the grace of today’s liturgy and allow Jesus to be the Good Shepherd of your life. Allow yourself to be loved by the Lord. May our summer mantra that the Lord will hold us accountable for the good things we fail to enjoy.
In the Gospel today, Jesus is experiencing a homecoming. After a long, tiring journey in his ministry of healing and evangelization, he finally returns home to Nazareth. I wonder what he was expecting. I imagine he was hoping for a warm welcome, being sincerely greeted by familiar faces and a chance to rest. I can’t help but imagine the satisfaction that he must have felt to finally be in that place where he could let his guard down a bit and experience all of those good things of home.
The loss of a child to illness or accident is every parent’s worst nightmare, a tragedy almost beyond imaging. The pain of loss never goes away. My sister Jean and her husband Bob lost their daughter Kara in a most tragic accident. This happened back in 2001. The grief my sister Jean carries with her never goes away.