Reflection for August 7, Monday of the 18th Week in Ordinary Time: Matthew 14:13-21

Gospel: Matthew 14:13-21

When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. The crowds heard of this and followed him on foot from their towns. When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick. 

When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said, “This is a deserted place and it is already late; dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.” Jesus said to them, “There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves.” 

But they said to him, “Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.” Then he said, “Bring them here to me, ” and he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds. 

They all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the fragments left over—twelve wicker baskets full. Those who ate were about five thousand men, not counting women and children.

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Reflection:

What will happen to us if we are generous? 

We would never run out of things to give be it money, goods, intellect or anything that we are generous of giving. Everything flows back in return a hundredfold.  Why is this so? The reason behind is, the moment we give; we don’t only give to the person who needs it we also give to Jesus. And Jesus whom we can never outdo in generosity gives back to us many times over what we give Him. 

The crowd in the gospel who were following Jesus had nothing more left in them, they were hungry. And Jesus saw this that’s why He graciously did the miracle of loaves and fish. With five loaves and two fish He feed the nearly five thousand people not including women and children. After all of them had eaten they had an excess of twelve wicker baskets. 

The simple message of the gospel for us is we must be generous at all times. This is for the reason that we will never run out of anything to give and the more that we give the more that we would receive. 

We just have to look at what is happening during Holy Mass which is very similar to what happened with the feeding of the five thousand people in our gospel. Inside every Holy Mass Jesus generously gives to us His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity during Holy Communion. Has Jesus stopped giving Himself to us during Holy Mass? No, Since HE instituted the Eucharist up until this very moment Jesus has been generously giving Himself to us through the Sacrament of Holy Communion. 

As Jesus is merciful and generous most especially to the poor so we must be also. Let us not worry if our pockets will hurt from our being merciful and generous. For Jesus will always see to it that we will be filled with anything that we need. – Marino J. Dasmarinas