Ignatian Meditation: A Miracle

It’s easy to imagine this scene: being in the hungry, approaching crowd, feeling famished and needing new life; or feeling like one of the bewildered disciples, doubting and questioning what Jesus wants to do.  

The disciples respond to Jesus in their timeless, disciple-like way: “How?” Can one feed 4000 with seven loaves and a few fish? Their answer is clear and they see it:  there are too many people and they don’t have enough.

This is a miracle story. Not a magic, hocus-pocus miracle but a relationship-response miracle. It’s a miracle story about our faith, something we can’t always see or believe: our faith in God and God’s faith in us.

We hold a miracle of faith in our hands, a relationship with a God who calls us to respond. God, who works with whatever little we have, believes we have enough, that we are more than enough. We are the disciples of Jesus. With us, and with God, all things are possible.

Prayer

Putting Love into Practice

Love consists in sharing

what one has

and what one is

with those one loves.

Love is showing itself in deeds

more than in words.

-St Ignatius of Loyola

“His disciples replied, “How can one feed these people with bread here in the desert?” 5 He asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” They said, “Seven.” 6 Then he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the crowd. 7 They had also a few small fish; and after blessing them, he ordered that these too should be distributed. 8 They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. “ Mark 10