Come Away By Yourselves

Jesus takes five loaves and two fish from a boy and multiplies them to feed a crowd of thousands.  When we trust him, Jesus takes our good will and our meager personal resources and similarly multiplies them to help us and others.  Fortunately, faith is something we can grow in by choosing to do so.  It is a free human act.  By admitting our limitations and weakness and then confidently trying our best to do his will, Jesus makes up the difference between our insufficiency and the great things he wants us to do.   

The readings for this Sunday's Mass relate the fruits of humility.  Growth in humility is worth the effort.  St. Theresa of Avila offers sound advice on how to advance in this essential Christian virtue. 

Jesus walks on water in the midst of a storm.   Peter joins him in a great act of daring and trust.  This Gospel scene contains lessons of prayer, trust, and union with Christ on the cross. 

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Christ expresses his burning desire to "cast fire on the earth."  This is a call to an intense Christian life.  To be men and women on fire for the love of God and others, we should look out for self-centered and lukewarm habits and mindsets.  Prayer, mortification and a generous plan for each day help to ignite the fire of God within us.

By leaving the saving news of the Gospel and the saving power of the sacraments to the Church, Jesus put great things into our hands.  The apostolic mission of Christians is an extension of Christ's own love for souls.  Apostolate, evangelization, becomes natural when we remember, or realize in a deeper way, just how much Christ means to us. 

To follow Jesus is to take up our cross each day.  Pain, sadness, fear and suffering were all a part of Christ's life and essential to his redemptive love for us.  To follow Jesus in love is therefore also to share in his suffering.  Our faith helps us to find meaning and solace in our most difficult trials. 

Jesus is the "light of the world" who gives us the "light of life."  Christian life is a process of continual identification with Christ.  The effort to do this is not just behavioral modification but, perhaps more fundamentally, intellectual conversion.  To convert is to see things as Christ does, to come to have "the mind of Christ" as St. Paul puts it.  This is our defense against the "wiles of the devil" and a key to sharing in Christ's love.    

Jesus gives us very clear advice on how to deal with worries and anxieties.  His advice is to replace worry with trust.  This replacement therapy is something we can practice first of all in our mental prayer. 

The Psalms and other Bible passages are full of encouraging claims about who and what God is for us.  The Lord is our rock, our stronghold, our inheritance  ...  Faith makes these claims come to life.  To be all that he wants to be for us, we must try to let God be our one and true God, whom we love with all of our soul, all of our heart and all of our mind.

On the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, we reflect on St. Peter's love for Jesus.  Compatible with his weaknesses, Peter is a model of perseverance, closeness to Christ, and the love sorrow of contrition. 

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