Five Little Words

August 12th, 2015 Posted in writing

It’s pretty simple. Five loaves of bread and a few fish won’t feed thousands of people, unless, of course, God gets involved. Several weeks ago, the gospel reading for Sunday showed what can happen then.

After Jesus had spent the better part of a day teaching a large crowd of people, it became clear that they needed something to eat. The apostles told Jesus there was no food except for a few loaves of bread and some fish, adding “What is that among so many?” But Jesus told them to give him what they had. When they did, he blessed the bread and fish and started handing them out. Miraculously, after all the people had eaten their fill, twelve baskets full of food remained.

One obvious lesson from this story is that God will not let his followers starve. But another lesson was suggested to me over forty years ago when a friend printed his ordination memorial cards. Instead of the normal verse from the Bible or a religious picture, it bore these five words: What You Have Is Enough. Since then, whenever a new school semester begins or I’m given a new apostolic assignment or I face an unexpected personal challenge and feel inadequate to the task, I remember these words and the miracle of the loaves and fish.

The apostles knew they would never be able to feed several thousand people with the meager resources at their disposal, and they were right. Similarly, we may be right in thinking that, left to ourselves, we don’t have the resources for things we want to do or others need us to do. But if, like the apostles, we bring what we have to Christ, he can bless that and, miraculously, the little we have can become enough. In fact, even more than enough.

  1. One Response to “Five Little Words”

  2. By Kevin on Aug 18, 2015

    Great post, Frank!

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