Today's Gospel

The Great Collaboration

Welcome back to Radical and Relevant, where we are exploring the genius of Jesus' teachings, looking for one word, one phrase, one idea to anchor our day in the Gospel. Today's reading is from the Gospel of Matthew chapter 14 verses 13 through 21. Now, when Jesus heard this, He withdrew from there in a boat to a lonely place apart. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. As he went ashore, he saw a great throne, and he had compassion for them and healed their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a lonely place, and the day is now over. Send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves." And Jesus said, "They need not go away. You give them something to eat." They said to Him, "We have only five loaves and two fish." And He said, "Bring them here to me." Then, He ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass and taking the five loaves and the two fish, He looked up to heaven and blessed and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up 12 baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about 5,000 men besides women and children.

What jumps out at you today? I think there's times in all of our lives when like the disciples, we say to Jesus, well, we can't do that because we've got so little offer. What they had to offer was five loaves and two fishes. What you and I have to offer our talents, our abilities, whatever, but sometimes in a situation, the situation might seem outmatched to our talents and abilities. Jesus says, no, yeah, you can't do it on your own, but together we can collaborate. What we see here is a great collaboration. Jesus could have manifested all the food out of nowhere that was necessary. He didn't want to do that. Why? God loves collaborating with humanity. If you read the history of salvation, it is a story about God desiring to collaborate with humanity. Humanity sometimes cooperating and collaborating, and when that happens, amazing things happen. But often, humanity, not so good with the collaborating with God, going off and doing their own thing, wanting to be in charge. And usually ends to disastrous results and misery for everybody. But here, we see a great collaboration between God and the disciples and something beautiful.

So these are the words that jump out of me today. All ate and were satisfied. Everyone ate and everyone was satisfied. We live in a world of epidemic dissatisfaction. The dissatisfaction of people's lives today is epic and astounding. And the reality is, is that that itself is an indication that we have wandered far from God, far from His way, far from this collaboration that leads to the satisfaction that we're all yearning for. So think to yourself, how is God inviting you to collaborate with Him today? Have an amazing day. And remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic.