Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today we hear how Christ’s miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. With a million and one possible theme’s to pick from my heart was drawn to ponder the reality of God’s providence; not of our physical lives but of His providential call to prayer. Sitting with the words of today’s scripture I felt Christ call me into a desolate place, a place of prayer, but like the disciples I wanted to be busy about many things. I wanted to be proactive.

Busy with many things, life seemingly pulled me in, as I spiritually ran from one issue to the next, excitedly trying to fix each and every concern.  Called to a desolate place I felt like I was one of the disciples who had seen amazing things but were more concerned with the cares of life, “who will feed all of these people?”

It is in this hurried and hassled state of mind that I heard the words of Christ, “There is no need for them to go away.”

I felt convicted.

God had called me into prayer, a desolate place, where he could speak in whispers of love to my heart but I had abandoned that silence. I had left because the cares seemed to be so much. Yet the words were as comforting as they were convicting. It was as if the Lord was saying to me, “there’s no need for this. Simmer down. There’s no need for you to rush about. Bring those concerns to me.”

And so today isn’t so much about a miracle in which we are all feed physically but about prayer. This weekends homily is about Gods invitation into intimate prayer in the silences of our hearts, our temptations to be distracted, and God’s patient response to those distractions.

 

 

Featured Photo by Ricky CC/BY