Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Guadium, urges us to “think of the homeless, the addicted, refugees, indigenous peoples, the elderly who are increasingly isolated and abandoned and many others” (EG 210) including “victims of various kinds of human trafficking and women enduring situations of exclusion, mistreatment and violence.”  “Let us not look the other way. There is greater complicity than we think”. The issue(s) involve everyone!

How are all these issues related to the “feeding of the five thousand” gospel? (Matt 14:13-21)

Just as Jesus tells his disciples to gather their meagre resources for the seemingly impossible task of feeding the needy crowd of thousands, so he calls us to gather our resources to the seemingly impossible task of meeting the needs of hundreds of millions of poor, marginalised, disregarded, exploited, abused and suffering.

We might say to Jesus, “We wish them all well and we’d love to help but we have limited resources of time, money, ability and courage. What can we possibly do?” That is a common, comfortable cop-out for us.  We wring our hands and pray quite sincerely that the Lord will address the suffering of humanity, resolving rightly not to add to that suffering. Perhaps even donating to a cause. But that’s not enough! We need to be listening to the Lord’s response to our prayer. We shy clear of the challenge of pro-active Christian loving, feeling we have little or nothing to offer but he doesn’t let us off the hook. He knows all of our circumstances and our limitations intimately and still he says to us, “Bring them here to me.” Then, rather than looking the other way, we take what we have to Jesus, he blesses it, and gives it back to us so that we might bring fullness to those whose lives we touch.

Deacon Mark Kelly         

       

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