Being Rich in Christ Jesus

Reflection on Today's Readings, 18th Sunday of Ordinary Yeah A
Texts: Is. 55:1-3; Ps. 145:8-9,16-18; Rom. 8:35,37-39; Matt. 14:13-21
In today's gospel, it is written thus: "When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, 'This is a lonely place, and the day is now over; send the crowd away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.' Jesus said, 'They need not go away; you give them something to eat'. Jesus Christ asked his disciples to give food to five thousand men, not counting women and children. Can we say that Jesus Christ was not aware that his disciples did not have such amount of food to feed them? We might say, 'perhaps, he was teasing them'. However, what this could actually mean is that when we have Christ we have everything. He actually proved it to them that they could give them something to eat: from what they gave he fed the people. That little food we have, that little resources we have, we could do wonder with them if we surrender them to Jesus Christ. In the first reading, he calls us, saying, "Ho, every one who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come and buy wine and milk without money and without price". The psalmist says of him thus: "You open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing". All we have to do is to incline our ears and go to him that our souls might live and he might make everlasting covenant with us. To be rich is to be with Christ, to be united with him in unconquerable love. Hence, St. Paul says, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulations, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loves us".
The miracle, in the today's gospel, took place in a lonely place to invoke God's loving care of his people in the wilderness. Hence, it shows Jesus Christ to be God among us who has come to satisfy our spiritual hunger and to heal all our diseases.

Lord our God, you open your hand and satisfy our desires, may our lives be testimonies of your loving care. Amen.

Fr. Andrew Olowomuke