August 4, 2025

Matthew 14:13-21

One night recently, I saw how we human beings can burden the present moment with thoughts, worries, and fears about the future, like a double reality – the one we are living, and our projections of future states. Yet many of our worries and projections will never come to pass. Jesus taught, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34). In the verses before this one, he asks us to trust in God, who has clothed the flowers with beauty and provides food and drink for all. Jesus advises us to “seek first his kingdom and righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”  Can we be present in this moment with God not just while practicing centering prayer or meditation, but also when we wake at 3 am or when we are doing errands?

In this present moment, too, we are commanded to feed the poor and care for the sick. Needs require action; we are called to be God’s hands and feet in the world.  In today’s reading, Jesus sees the hungry crowds at the end of a long day of healing and teaching, and rather than sending them away to find food, he takes the five loaves and two fishes he has, looks up to heaven, blesses them, breaks the bread, and gives it to the disciples to distribute. Miraculously, it feeds the crowd of five thousand or more.

The key points here are that Jesus looked up to heaven, relying on God’s transformative power, and he took action to feed the hungry.  Anyone who refuses to feed the hungry cannot call themselves a follower of Jesus. Anyone who closes their hearts to the sick and wounded is not in tune with God, whose heart is moved with pity. The world is rightly sickened by the suffering in Gaza. We pray for abundance of food, water, and medicine, and most of all love throughout the world.