Aug 7 - 18th Week in OT - Monday

+ Our first reading from the book of Numbers finds Moses at his wits end. He is very frustrated at the rag-tag group of people that the Lord has put him in charge of, trying to lead them to a new life, a new start, a whole new avenue of adventure and surprising happenings!

They keep losing their focus, they have very short memories, they follow shiny objects: they are putting their eternal salvation in jeopardy! “Give us water!” they demanded of the Lord (can you imagine: “DEMANDING” anything from God – let alone what we in our sophistries and machinations think we even know what we need).

The amazing thing is that God always “gives in” and lets them have what they want and “demand” – he is a model of humility and patience: and most of all, Fatherly love!

Today we see them asking for something more than the manna that had provided for their extreme hunger when they first crossed the Red Sea miraculously, and entered the desert. They have not much gratitude for the gifts given, and they “demand” now meat: “Give us meat to eat, we are tired of this manna… we want more, always more!

Does this ring a bell in our own lives? Do we demand from God what we think we need – demand and plead and bargain? and drive the “leader of the pack” the Moses figure to distraction?

Perhaps we need to let go of our own wills, and let God be God, let him be Father, let him be provider.

In the gospel passage Jesus, indeed does provide bread for the hungry – manna if you will. This time they don’t complain about it, but they don’t get the full meaning of what he is doing in multiplying the loaves. They don’t yet see the connection of the Eucharistic Bread that will become his own Body – to heal us, to soothe us, to comfort us, to nurture us, and to strengthen us! This will come later at the Last Supper he has with his Apostles.

Are we slow to learn too, we who have been instructed in the nature of God’s greatest gift: his own self, in person, in the flesh concealed under the appearance of bread and wine!

Yes, God still provides, but now he insists on give what we need, not what we think we need! Perhaps it’s time for us to trust in his ways, his words, his actions for our greater good – rather than our own very narrow and limited concept of supply and demand.

Perhaps another lesson can be this: God wants to give us so much more than we can possibly imagine: let’s not cut ourselves short: let us “go for the gold”, let him dote over us as the loving children that we really are: let us receive the overabundance that he wants to give us at every moment of the day!

Let us ring out our joy to God, our strength, our delight and our happiness! – and let us thank him profoundly – this, and all the days of our life.