“The disciples said to him, ‘Where are we to get enough bread in the desert to feed so great a crowd?’” – Today’s Gospel, Matthew 15
Sometimes working in a Catholic school, I can feel like the disciples. So many to feed spiritually, intellectually, emotionally – but not enough food for all. How can we ensure enough bread for all?
Most of our urban schools are lacking in the resources that provide us to properly feed our students. We need support for (or better) teachers and tools. We need tuition assistance for families struggling to make ends meet. We need resources and connections for aging buildings, out of date marketing, and a lack of programs. How can we ensure enough?
Then ordering the crowd to sit down on the ground, He took the seven loaves and the fish; and after giving thanks He broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.
We start by giving thanks for the gifts we do have. We have a strong Faith, a dedication in many of our current staff and families, a tradition stretching back centuries.
We share what we have. How can our communities come together? What other partnerships can we form across our schools? Across our organizations? Across the country?
Lastly, we need to roll up our sleeves and get to work! The disciples heed the call and go out into the crowds, carrying the gifts offered by the child and multiplied by Christ. Things won’t change unless we DO them.
As Aesop’s fable goes:
A waggoneer was once driving a heavy load along a very muddy way. At last he came to a part of the road where the wheels sank half-way into the mire, and the more the horses pulled, the deeper sank the wheels.
So the Waggoneer threw down his whip, and knelt down and prayed to Hercules the Strong. “O Hercules, help me in this my hour of distress,” quoth he.
But Hercules appeared to him, and said: “Tut, man, don’t sprawl there. Get up and put your shoulder to the wheel.” The gods help them that help themselves.
We can complain about being saddled with an era of declining enrollments, sexual and financial scandal, dissension amongst the faithful, rampant materialism, and an increasingly hostile and pervasive secularism or we can begin making the changes we are called to make. We can take our meager bread and fish and let the Lord multiply them.
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