Give Jesus Your Poverty

This is a computer-generated transcription that has been included to make the homily searchable.  It has not been verified by the author. 

“Jesus said to Philip, Where can we buy enough food for them to eat? Philip answered him, 200 days wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little. Andrew said to them, there’s a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what good are these for so many?” What good are these for so many? Why does Jesus ask for this boys, loaves and fishes? He doesn’t need it, in His divine power. It’s not like He couldn’t work the miracle without that, and it would have been more impressive if He did, because those loaves and fishes are nothing in comparison to the need they have. In a sense, it just kind of complicates things. So why did He ask for the boys, loaves and fishes, and what does this say about what He’s asking of you? This is the first of the five readings we’re going to have from the Gospel of St John, where normally this year we’re reading through, on Sundays, we’re reading through the Gospel of St Mark. But this is like a little exception, and all these next five, today and the next four Sundays are all from the sixth chapter of Saint John, which is the chapter which Jesus will talk about He is the bread of life. So let’s look again at this situation. So the problem is that there’s a lack of food for this multitude. And the problem is one that the apostles can’t fix. They don’t know any better solution than just for everybody to leave. And so Jesus asked for this boy’s contribution. What the boy gives is nothing compared to the need, nothing materially compared to the need, it really won’t make any difference compared to such a big need. But beyond the material gift that the boy is giving, he’s also giving something more. He’s giving an act of faith, of trust in Jesus. He’s making an act of obedience to Jesus. He’s making an act of generosity, giving what he had for the others. And so ultimately, it’s an act of love. And so while materially, it’s very little, but spiritually, it’s very powerful. And Jesus doesn’t disdain it. He doesn’t say, well, that’s no good for such a situation. On the contrary, He asked for it. He doesn’t work the miracle until the boy gives Him what he had. And so the boy gives Jesus the little bit that he had, and with that, Jesus feeds all the crowd. And so He feeds all the crowd with what His power has done, but it’s also with what the boy has contributed. All the people who are fed are fed by God’s power, but God’s power which has multiplied the boy’s contribution. So the boy’s gift is present in each one of those persons who are fed. And the boy who would have seemed like an unimportant person, he’s just a young guy, so not important, doesn’t have the importance of an adult. But it’s he who is the one who contributes most to this great miracle. Jesus chooses a person who would have seemed unimportant, a boy, to perform this great miracle. And so let’s think a little bit about what that’s teaching for us. Because the need that people have food can represent all the material needs today, all the people who are hungry today, all the people who are without housing today, all the material needs of the people today. And can also represent the even deeper spiritual needs and the need for truth, the need for encouragement, the need for friendship, the need for love, all the deepest hungers of the human person. And we can’t fix – we all see these needs, we all know there’s tremendous needs, and we can’t fix all those needs. We can’t supply all that’s needed. We know that the only one who can do that, of course, is the Lord. He is the only one who has all the power necessary to feed, to respond to the tremendous needs, the tremendous hungers of the world today. And so God is the only one who can do it, but, and this is a key point that we see from this gospel, but He wants our cooperation. He wants your cooperation. God wants to respond to the hunger of our world, but He calls for your cooperation. And so much depends on your response. That’s the whole charism of the Mission of Divine Mercy, faith so that God can act. God wants to act and do what only He can do, but He calls for our cooperation, our faith, our cooperation. And so that’s very encouraging, that there is a response for what the world needs today, but also God will do what He has to do if we do our part. And what is our part? Our part is, as we see in this gospel, it’s to give the little bit that we have. And think of the other example that Jesus gives of the poor widow in the temple, what we call the widow’s might, the poor widow in the temple, who had almost nothing to contribute. But Jesus said she’s contributing actually more than everyone else, because she’s giving of the very little that she had, of the poverty that she had. So materially, what she had to give was very little. Economically, it was very little, but spiritually, it was immense. And so that’s the act that we’re called to do, to give the little bit that we have, but to give it where? Where do we give it? The people who are very skilled at investing know that it’s very important where they invest their money. That’s what makes a skilled investor. It’s not just that they say, well, I’m going to put my money someplace. No, they say, I’m going to put my money here, because maybe it’s going to give 30% or 40% or whatever, 100% yield. And so Jesus is kind of, you could say, He’s giving us investment advice. In a sense, teaching us what we should do with the little bit that we have. Because we have a little bit of time on this earth, and so how are we going to use that time? And so He’s inviting us to use the little bit that we have by giving it, not just giving it, but giving it to Him. What if the boy could have said, well, I want to be generous. So he could have just started handing out his bread and fish. You know, maybe there would have been, I don’t know, he had five loaves and two fishes. How many people does that feed? I don’t know how big the loaves were, probably not very big. And so that would have fed maybe a couple of people. The boy could have done that, that would have been generous, right and good, and would have fed two or three people. But what did the boy do? He obeyed Jesus, and he gave it to Jesus. He trusted Jesus. He obeyed Jesus, he gave it to Jesus. So you see the difference. One is just an act of generosity, which is good. But one is an act of generosity, but it’s even more an act of faith, of giving it to Jesus, and that’s what multiplies it, giving it to Jesus doing what only He can do, because Jesus can do what only He can do. One example, I think of for America, a good example is Mother Angelica, who was a poor girl from a broken home, who had suffered a lot, not very educated, a person who didn’t seem to have much ahead of her. But by giving her life to Jesus and by obeying Him in extraordinary ways, there’s this whole immense Eternal Word Television Network that developed. The whole media network that developed because she gave herself to Jesus. And that’s striking, because that’s not someone from 2000 years ago. That’s someone right here in our country, from Ohio. Can anything good come from Ohio? I’m from West Virginia, so I’m not too far from Ohio. People would rather say, “Can anything good come from West Virginia?” But so by giving it to Jesus, and that’s an example in our times with of this whole media outgrowth that has developed. And I think of that, for this is the path for our little Mission of Divine Mercy. We’re such a little mission, and facing the immense needs of our world today, and which are especially with all the evil that is attacking our world. A lot of you are aware of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, which were such a clear manifestation of the satanic power. In some ways it’s good that it’s made more clear, because that’s been going on for a long time. There’s been a lot of occult symbolism in the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies, in the Super Bowl halftime shows and so forth. A lot of times it’s a little bit more hidden, and people aren’t as aware of it. This time, it was not very hidden, but it’s a sign of the evil which is so powerful in our world today. So what are we supposed to do? We realize that only God can do what needs to be done, but He’s also calling for our cooperation. And one of the ways that we’re beginning to see that here is by publishing, taking a step which has been a very difficult step, of publishing the messages. And a lot of people have criticized us a lot for doing that. But by doing that, we’re hearing from so many people who are telling us about how much this is nourishing them and sustaining them, giving them trust, giving them hope, giving them peace, helping them sense the presence of God. And so from this little mission and from our obedience to God, this God has been multiplying these graces. And we also hear from a lot of people coming here who share with us also their experiences, the graces that they experience here. And it’s a sign. Again, it’s not things that we are doing, it’s things that the Holy Spirit is doing, but He’s asked for our cooperation, and our cooperation is not just publishing the messages, but it’s all the things we do to serve the Lord. For instance, even something as simple as hidden, as cleaning the bathrooms here at the mission. Even humble tasks like that, who knows all the graces that people are receiving because of some very simple services, the very hidden services. There’s a good friend of ours who, after he retired, he said, I won’t name his name, but he spent many years on Monday, our quiet day after the weekend, he would come in and by himself, clean the bathrooms in the mission. And he did that for many years. He had had important responsibilities in the corporate world before his retirement, but then that’s what he was doing, and who knows, all the graces that people receive from people performing those very humble tasks. And so your mission is to give the little bit that you have, which might not seem I don’t have that much to give, and maybe I don’t feel very talented, maybe I don’t feel very spiritual, but the Lord’s asking to give the little bit that you have to Him. And the more it is little – the greater the act of faith. Because if a person says, I’m extremely talented, there’s so much I can do. I mean, I’m pretty much the salvation of the world. So maybe I’ll help the Lord a little bit, and I’ll put my great abilities to His service. There’s a lot of pride in that. There’s not a lot of faith. But if a person says, what I have to give is so little. I’m not very capable, I’m not very, maybe my health is not good, maybe spiritually, I really struggle. But I’m going to give the very little bit that I have. I’m going to give that to the Lord. It might be very little in one sense, but the act of faith is even much greater, and so He can do more with it. I’ll read you a little message. This is an excerpt from a message the Lord gave last year. So this was last July, July 13. So that’s a very significant day in the story of Fatima. So this was July 13 last year, and this was a little message He gave to our community and to the staff here. And as we were beginning to think about the step that the Lord was seeming to ask us, He said, “Now is the time of grace and mercy in which I multiply each effort. I multiply each effort, each effort, each gesture of love for Me, each sacrifice, each act of your will to fulfill My will. If you could only see how much is obtained from my heart with only one loving and trusting gaze of yours.” So He’s saying if you could only see, because most of the time we can’t see a lot. Sometimes God gives us a chance to see a little bit the fruit, but a lot of times we don’t see it. And so that’s what He’s talking about. It’s an act of faith, He says, “with one loving and trusting gaze.” He says, “even just with your turning to Me with trust, already, that draws fruit.” And then He says something else – “with only one cry of pain of yours,” even our cries of pain, and He’s saying, especially our cries of pain, can draw great graces. He says, “If you could, you would not tire of looking at Me, of crying out to Me, of crying out to Me.” So He said, Just turning our attention to the Lord and just crying out to Him draws many graces. And then He says, and this is, this is striking. He says, but because we’re probably not aware of this, He says, “but because you carry the weight of centuries of sin, centuries of rebellion, centuries of lack of faith.” So all of us today are carrying this weight of centuries of sin, of centuries of rebellion, of centuries of lack of faith. I mean, think again of that, that opening ceremony at the Olympics. The Olympics is supposed to be a time where the whole world comes together, right, where we celebrate what we have in common. When we try to be peaceful and united, right? Isn’t that? And it’s supposed to be the whole world. And so hey, that’s a great time to mock the most sacred moments of the Christian faith in the most degraded way. So that doesn’t happen overnight. That’s a sign of this ever-increasing burden, which has been piling up for centuries, and which is weighing us down. Because it’s like a city full of air pollution, where it’s just, it’s so pervasive, though, and we’ve just grown up in this, that we hardly notice how much it’s toxic effect is attacking us, is weighing on us. And so He says, “because of this extreme weight,” He says, “You can barely move, you can barely look at Me, it costs you a superhuman effort.” So just to turn our gaze to God, cost a superhuman effort because of this. So that sounds pretty discouraging, right? But then He says, “and for this reason, I make it worth doubly, triply, infinitely,” because just making those simple efforts, because of the extreme weight that’s weighing down on us, just those simple efforts of even crying out in pain, He multiplies its value even infinitely. He says, “no effort, however small, is useless or invisible. They are all before my eyes. I take them all into account.” Maybe no one else sees, but He sees. “If the enemy uses everything to wound Me in you, how much more do I take advantage of everything to free you from his crutches and machinations?” And so in this Mass that we’re celebrating right now, and just a few moments, we’ll have the offertory, and that’s the moment in which that small drop of water, the priest pours the small drop of water into the wine. And then now that water, that drop of water becomes mixed with the wine, so you can no longer separate the water in the wine. And that’s a sign of us uniting our offerings to the Lord. And so the offertory is a time in which a lot of parishes, that’s when they take up the offertory collection. We don’t take it up at that time. But money is a sign of that. But it’s not just money, this is a time, an opportunity for you to give of your talents, your efforts, your prayers, your joys. Give thanksgiving to God for all the joys that He’s given you, all the blessings, but also to offer up in the offertory, your sacrifices, everything that has been hard and sad, heavy, painful, humiliating, all of those heavy things in our life, painful, heavy things. Instead of wasting them, the offertory is an opportunity to give those to Him, like that water in the wine, placing all those in the chalice. And then a few moments later, then the priest extends his hand and calls down the Holy Spirit, upon this offering, which is, is the offering which will be the bread and wine, which will be transformed into the body and blood of Jesus. But with that, it’s your offering now, united to His to save souls. And I think of Simon of Cyrene, who was forced into carrying the cross of Jesus Christ. And probably he was probably, perhaps at first, very resentful. Why does this happen to me? But then gradually he began to realize and discover in the great evil that was happening, an even greater act of God’s gift of God’s love and mercy. And he was the one who had been chosen to participate. And so what had seemed to him, first of all, something terrible that he was being forced to carry this heavy cross and be close to this guy who was being condemned by the whole crowd. He later began to see that as probably the greatest privilege of his life. And so the very sufferings and crosses and trials and humiliations that we endure, we can begin to realize that that’s our opportunity to help carry the cross of Jesus to save souls. And so with our Blessed Mother, with St. Simon of Cyrene, with that widow, and with this young boy, all these heroes of the Gospel, the Mass is the opportunity for us to bring all that we have, and especially all our sacrifices, to offer it now, In just a few moments, to unite that to Jesus. Offer the little we have, the little we are to Him so that He can multiply that infinitely. Jesus, we trust in You.  Amen. 

KEYWORDS / PHRASES:
John 6:1-15