Holy Spirit help me continually live into your generous mercy …

 
Mark 7:8:14 -21

 
When Jesus has his disciples ponder the significance of the Feeding of the Five Thousand and the subsequent Feeding of the Four Thousand, he presents these two events not simply as amazing provision for thousands of people at a time. Rather, Jesus is guiding those who became the Apostles of the Early Church, to deeply understand the underlying generosity and unique ‘intelligence’, or wisdom, of the Mercy of God. His message is that God’s Mercy is to be trusted – beyond the provision of bread for bellies or even supplies for the future; it is always not just scarcely enough but bountiful; and it is exactly what is needed. All we need do, like the disciples at the feedings, is to trust in the Holy – “Whole” – Mercy of God, and consistently bring to the Holy Spirit of Jesus what we have. When we bring the ‘little’ we have – and the littleness of what we are – to Christ Jesus, he blesses it with all his Light, Life, and Love, breaks it, and then distributes it to the hungry and needy around us. The point Jesus makes clearly to his disciples in this passage of Scripture, is that He is able to receive all that we (I) have (and all that we are (I am)), and that by trusting what we are and have into his hands, we will behold wondrous works of Mercy and provision beyond anything we can imagine. 
 
When I am drenched with the rain of grief, enraged by miscues of human conduct, or anxious about the next few hours or days of life, it is easy to let my hunger of heart, mind and strength hide me from God’s Mercy.  But, like the people who offered up their fish and bread, as much as I surrender what I have to Christ he is able to perform miracles of mercy, not only for me, but for the world in general.  It is this message of the generosity and ‘intelligence’ of God’s mercy, not the laws of the Pharisees, the power and success of someone like Herod, nor even food for the hungry, that is the real “Good News” of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Will I take a deep dive into the Mercy of God?  Holy Spirit, help me continually live into your generous mercy.
 
I long for your salvation, O Lord, and your law is my delight. Let me live that I may praise you, and let your ordinances help me.  (Psalm 119:174-175)
 
Divine Mercy, incomprehensible mystery, I Trust in You.
Saint Faustina
 
Soli ad gloriam Dei
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