Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes [July 29, 2012]

The Sunday Gospel [July 29, 2012]

John 6:1-15

1After this, Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee [of Tiberias]. 2A large crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick. 3Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. 4The Jewish feast of Passover was near. 5When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowd was coming to him, he said to Philip, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?” 6He said this to test him, because he himself knew what he was going to do. 7Philip answered him, “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little [bit].” 8One of his disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him, 9“There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?” 10Jesus said, “Have the people recline.” Now there was a great deal of grass in that place. So the men reclined, about five thousand in number. 11Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were reclining, and also as much of the fish as they wanted. 12When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, “Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.” 13So they collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat.14When the people saw the sign he had done, they said, “This is truly the Prophet,*the one who is to come into the world.” 15Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain alone.

Reflection

“There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.” ~ v. 9

Have you ever noticed that sometimes when you bring your gifts to Jesus as this young boy did, nothing much seems to happen? They just seem to sit there, undeveloped and underappreciated. Did you ever think that perhaps, to use a business parallel, the blockage is on the distribution side?

Jesus didn’t tell his disciples to just sit quietly while he multiplied the loaves. He told them to have the people recline – he told them to get the crowd ready for the miracle he was about to do. It wasn’t time to sit by and wait for Jesus to do something; it was time to get to work! And so the disciples organized the people into groups sitting on the grass. That’s when the miracle happened.

So if you want to see your offerings to God multiplied, you have an essential role to play. You may not be working the miracle yourself, but you do need to get out there and do something! It is impossible to know what this “something” is in each situation. We all have different gifts, different life situations, different opportunities that will present themselves today. But one thing is sure: Each of us will have an opportunity to do something important for the kingdom of God.

Starting today, try your best to be open to your Father’s promptings when it comes to the people you meet, the situations you encounter, and the movements of your heart. And then take a step in whatever direction you think he is leading you. The result may surprise you!\

Source: The Reflection is from Bro. Abel Navarro (you can visit his blog at http://myblogabelnavarroabel.blogspot.com/).

You are not living for yourself but for souls

[Diary 67]

When I fell sick [probably the beginning of consumption] after my first vows and when, despite the kind and solicitous care of my Superiors and the efforts of the doctor, I felt neither better nor worse, remarks began to reach my ears which inferred that I was making believe. With that, my suffering was doubled, and this lasted for quite a long time. One day I complained to Jesus that I was being a burden to the sisters. Jesus answered me, You are not living for yourself but for souls, and other souls will profit from your sufferings. Your prolonged suffering will give them the light and strength to accept My will.

Source: DIARY, Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul © 1987 Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception of the B.V.M.  Stockbridge, MA 01263.  All Rights Reserved. Used with permission.

Note: If you like my post then consider buying the Book "Divine Mercy in my Soul" from the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception website. The owner of this blog have no other intention but to spread and proclaim the "Divine Mercy".

The Return of the Twelve [July 22, 2012]

The Sunday Gospel [July 22, 2012]

Mark 6:30-34

30The apostles gathered together with Jesus and reported all they had done and taught. 31He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” People were coming and going in great numbers, and they had no opportunity even to eat. 32So they went off in the boat by themselves to a deserted place. 33People saw them leaving and many came to know about it. They hastened there on foot from all the towns and arrived at the place before them.

Reflection

He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” ~ v. 31

The Gospel today shows both the Lord Jesus and his disciples immersed in serious work. They labor hard for the kingdom. They serve the people with eagerness and total commitment. They were not driven merely by the desire for success. Jesus and his disciples were sincere in their work but their work was not to have the highest priority.

Receiving his disciples from their successful mission, Jesus reminds them of the importance of rest, solitude and recharging. He taught them a valuable lesson in hard work: No one can be continually productive without moments of separation from the many preoccupations of the world.

Today many people have to be reminded to rest; to listen to their bodies’ aches and pains and to respect the limits of their bodies. Many people enslave themselves in their work for a good reason – to live, to provide, to fulfill their destiny. But at what cost? Doctors blame the rising pressures and tensions in our lives as the cause of many stress related diseases. People get sick in their mind before they get physically infirm. Other values are sacrificed at the altar of money and self-fulfillment: quality time with spouse, bonding with children, health concerns, and relationship with God.

By inviting his disciples to rest awhile, Jesus is reminding us that we cannot overextend ourselves and forget the things that matter most. There is a message that modern men and women need to hear. The break the Gospel advocates is also an invitation to rest in the Lord. We need to make time for God in our lives. To continue being effective at work, we need to ask the help of God.

Just as it is important to recreate our energies by relaxing and engaging in bonding activities, we also need to continuously renew our hope and confidence through prayer and other spiritual activities. That is why we have retreats, recollections, seminars, Daily Masses and the adoration chapel. Do you avail yourself of these? This week, improve your performance at your work by learning to pause and relax. Spend time with the Lord who renews fatigued muscles, tired minds, and sapped spirits. Rest in the Lord.

Reflection Credits: Fr. Ranil R. Marcos. MA. STL; Proclaim, Reflections on the Sunday Gospels, slightly adapted

Source: The Reflection is from Bro. Abel Navarro (you can visit his blog at http://myblogabelnavarroabel.blogspot.com/).

The Chaplet for Hardened Sinners

[Diary 1541]

My daughter, encourage souls to say the chaplet which I have given to you. It pleases Me to grant everything they ask of Me by saying the chaplet. When hardened sinners say it, I will fill their souls with peace, and the hour of their death will be a happy one.

Write this for the benefit of distressed souls: when a soul sees and realizes the gravity of its sins, when the whole abyss of the misery into which it immersed itself is displayed before its eyes, let it not despair, but with trust let it throw itself into the arms of My mercy, as a child into the arms of its beloved mother. These souls have a right of priority to My compassionate Heart, they have first access to My mercy. Tell them that no soul that has called upon My mercy has been disappointed or brought to shame. I delight particularly in a soul which has placed its trust in My goodness.

Write that when they say this chaplet in the presence of the dying, I will stand between My Father and the dying person, not as the just Judge but as the merciful Savior.

Source: DIARY, Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul © 1987 Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception of the B.V.M.  Stockbridge, MA 01263.  All Rights Reserved. Used with permission.

Note: If you like my post then consider buying the Book "Divine Mercy in my Soul" from the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception website. The owner of this blog have no other intention but to spread and proclaim the "Divine Mercy".

The Mission of the Twelve [July 15, 2012]

The Sunday Gospel [July 15, 2012]

Mark 6:7-13

 7He summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits. 8He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick—no food, no sack, no money in their belts. 9They were, however, to wear sandals but not a second tunic.10He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave from there.11Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet in testimony against them.” 12So they went off and preached repentance.13They drove out many demons, and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

 Reflection

“He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick—no food, no sack, no money in their belts.” ~ v. 8

After a period of “apprenticeship.” Jesus sends the twelve to preach the need for repentance, with authority to cast out unclean spirits. They have to go “two by two,” that their witnessing may be considered trustworthy and valid (cf Deuteronomy 19:15) and so that they may mutually support each other. Then they have to forego whatever smacks of security and comfort: no food, traveling bag, money, second tunic, making do with the clothes on their body and a walking stick. They should not choose their lodging but should accept whatever is offered to them.

In his missionary discourse to the apostles, Jesus raises the fundamental issue of giving witness to their message. Simplicity of lifestyle is fundamental. This is best reflected in the poverty of the preachers. Though the Word of God may be similar to a seed that contains its own power to grow, it grows faster if the sower is fit for the job. To be effective “sowers,” the apostles must be poor and unencumbered by attachment to material possession.

The early Christian communities were already familiar with preachers who did not always preach Christ with pure motives, making a “profitable living” out of the Gospel. That is why the apostle Paul, though saying that the preacher should derive his keep from the Gospel, supported himself by the labor of his own hands so as not to provide a pretext for people to doubt his motives.

The Didache (Teaching), which may be the oldest example of Christian literature outside of the New Testament, provides a clear test of genuineness of the preacher. “A missioner at his departure (from the Christian community he evangelized) should accept nothing but as much provisions as will last him to his next night’s lodging. If he asks for money, he is not a genuine missioner… if any charismatic speaking in a trance, says, ‘Give me money’ (for anything else), do not listen to him. On the other hand, if he bids you give it to someone else who is need nobody should criticize him.”

In the last decade, some famous TV evangelists fell from grace due to scandals of expensive and loose living. When they were just starting their preaching activity and had little money, they loved people and used things. But when money came, they started to use people and love things.

Pope Paul VI writes about the importance of the witness of life: “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than teachers, and if he listens to teachers, it is because they are witnesses” (Evangelii Nuntiandi n 41). Any Christian who commits himself to the task of evangelization must take to heart the missionary discourse of Jesus.

Reflection Credits: Fr. Gil A. Alinsangan, SSP, On the Way to the Cross

Source: The Reflection is from Bro. Abel Navarro (you can visit his blog at http://myblogabelnavarroabel.blogspot.com/).

You are My joy; you are My heart's delight

[Diary 27]

First vows [First profession of temporary vows, April 30, 1928]. An ardent desire to empty myself for God by an active love, but a love that would be imperceptible, even to the sisters closest to me.

However, even after the vows, darkness continued to reign in my soul for almost a half year. Once, when I was praying, Jesus pervaded all my soul, darkness melted away, and I heard these words within me: You are My joy; you are My heart's delight. From that moment I felt the Most Holy Trinity in my heart; that is to say, within myself. I felt that I was inundated with Divine light. Since then, my soul has been in intimate communion with God, like a child with its beloved Father.

Source: DIARY, Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul © 1987 Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception of the B.V.M.  Stockbridge, MA 01263.  All Rights Reserved. Used with permission.

Note: If you like my post then consider buying the Book "Divine Mercy in my Soul" from the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception website. The owner of this blog have no other intention but to spread and proclaim the "Divine Mercy".

Rejection at Nazareth [July 8, 2012]

The Sunday Gospel [July 8, 2012]

Mark 6:1-6

1He departed from there and came to his native place, accompanied by his disciples. 2When the sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him? What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands! 3Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. 4Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.” 5So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them. 6He was amazed at their lack of faith.

Reflection

“A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.” ~ v. 4

Most of us know the old definition of an “expert”: anyone who comes from more than fifty miles away. By now, the requirement must be five hundred miles. We seem to have a problem with closeness, with the ordinary, with the everyday.

Expertise is most respected when it comes from a distance. Prophetic gifts as well. Prophets are best when they are far away and long ago. Here and now is a different story. “Surely she cannot be a prophet; I went to school with her.” “He cannot prophesy; I know his mother.” “That guy cannot be a source of joy and grace to others; I’ve been with him in community for years. He tells terrible jokes and wears cuff-links.” Is this why no one is a hero to one’s own valet?

We reject not only the prophets around us. We reject the prophet within. This is the repression of the prophetic and heroic impulse of that person who is most ordinary and familiar to us: one’s very self.

Since we are most often our own valets, most often familiar to ourselves, we are skeptical of the possibility that we ourselves could be prophetic or heroic. We leave little room for prophecy in the spaces closest and most intimate to us. Thus, there is little room for the miracles of faith. “No prophet is without honor except in that person’s native land. Jesus could work no miracle there, apart from a few, so much of their lack of faith distress him.”

In the tradition of so many other reluctant prophets, we use our proximity to ourselves as our excuse. “I am too young, too unprepared, too old, too weak and sinful, too busy and preoccupied, too homely, too nice. If only I could fly to a far-off place and some other time, in disguise, armed with stirring rhetoric and bright virtue. If only I could seize the pulpit or get the ear of the bishop, or be a holy subversive in the College of Cardinals. Then, then I could prophesy.”

But not here. Not now. Not me.

The reason we reject our own heroic and prophetic possibilities, if we are honest with ourselves, is that we know how weak and inadequate we are. Surely a hero cannot be lurking behind such common talent, such ordinary appearance. Surely a prophet’s life is not marked by failure and frailties such as ours.

St. Paul, it seems, was also hounded by the thought of his inadequacy. He begged – three times – that God would remove the “thorn in his flesh.” The prayer seems not to have been answered.

But if, like him, we learn to be “content with our weakness, for the sake of Christ,” we may one day find ourselves unleashed, our hearts emboldened, our words firm and free.

“For when I am powerless, it is then that I am strong.” If that is the case, all prophecy, like politics, is local.

Reflection Credits: Fr. John F. Kavanaugh, S.J., The Word Encountered

Source: The Reflection is from Bro. Abel Navarro (you can visit his blog at http://myblogabelnavarroabel.blogspot.com/).

On passing judgment to others

[Diary 1527]

+ A certain sister is constantly persecuting me for the sole reason that God communes with me so intimately, and she thinks that this is all pretense on my part. When, she thinks that I have done something amiss she says, "Some people have revelations, but commit such faults!" She has said this to all the sisters and always in a derogatory sense, in order to make me out as some sort of an oddity. One day, it caused me much pain to think that this insignificant drop which is the human brain can so easily scrutinize the gifts of God. After Holy Communion, I prayed that the Lord would enlighten her, but nevertheless I learned that this soul will not attain perfection if she does not change her interior dispositions.

[Diary 1528]

+ When I complained to the Lord Jesus about a certain person [saying], "Jesus, how can this person pass judgment like that, even about an intention?" the Lord answered, Do not be surprised. That soul does not even know her own self, so how could she pass a fair judgment on another soul?

Source: DIARY, Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul © 1987 Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception of the B.V.M.  Stockbridge, MA 01263.  All Rights Reserved. Used with permission.

Note: If you like my post then consider buying the Book "Divine Mercy in my Soul" from the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception website. The owner of this blog have no other intention but to spread and proclaim the "Divine Mercy".

Jairus’s Daughter and the Woman with a Hemorrhage [July 1, 2012]

 The Sunday Gospel [July 1, 2012]

Mark 5:21-43

21When Jesus had crossed again [in the boat] to the other side, a large crowd gathered around him, and he stayed close to the sea. 22One of the synagogue officials, named Jairus, came forward. Seeing him he fell at his feet 23and pleaded earnestly with him, saying, “My daughter is at the point of death. Please, come lay your hands on her* that she may get well and live.” 24He went off with him, and a large crowd followed him and pressed upon him. 25There was a woman afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years. 26She had suffered greatly at the hands of many doctors and had spent all that she had. Yet she was not helped but only grew worse. 27She had heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak. 28She said, “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.” 29Immediately her flow of blood dried up. She felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction. 30Jesus, aware at once that power had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who has touched my clothes?” 31But his disciples said to him, “You see how the crowd is pressing upon you, and yet you ask, ‘Who touched me?’” 32And he looked around to see who had done it. 33The woman, realizing what had happened to her, approached in fear and trembling. She fell down before Jesus and told him the whole truth.34He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your affliction.”

35While he was still speaking, people from the synagogue official’s house arrived and said, “Your daughter has died; why trouble the teacher any longer?” 36Disregarding the message that was reported, Jesus said to the synagogue official, “Do not be afraid; just have faith.” 37He did not allow anyone to accompany him inside except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. 38When they arrived at the house of the synagogue official, he caught sight of a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. 39So he went in and said to them, “Why this commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but asleep.” 40And they ridiculed him. Then he put them all out. He took along the child’s father and mother and those who were with him and entered the room where the child was. 41He took the child by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise!” 42The girl, a child of twelve, arose immediately and walked around. [At that] they were utterly astounded. 43He gave strict orders that no one should know this and said that she should be given something to eat.

Reflection

“And he looked around to see who had done it.” ~ v. 32

In a sense, Jesus was just as persistent as this woman was. It didn’t matter that he was on his way to heal someone’s daughter. He still took the time to reach out to this lonely, desperate woman because she mattered to him just as the important, influential Jairus did.

God wants personal contact with us. It is not enough for him to dispense healing and grace mechanically, as if from afar. He wants to see us, to touch us, and to assure us of his love. We don’t have to lower our expectations or reduce the Christian life to a matter of formulas and contracts. We were made for communion with God – and Jesus longs for communion with us!

So when you pray today, put aside your to-do list and reach out for Jesus. Push through whatever objections may rise up, and grab hold of his robe. Then don’t be surprised to find Jesus turning and looking at you with love. Don’t be surprised when he speaks words of healing, encouragement, and direction. He loves spending time with you!

Source: The Reflection is from Bro. Abel Navarro (you can visit his blog at http://myblogabelnavarroabel.blogspot.com/).