Philip and Andrew

Today's homily is worth sharing...at least one little piece of it. Father Jim P, one of our regular Sunday presiders, offered wonderful reflections on the readings today, all of which carried out the theme of bread and feeding the people. The gospel story, (the only parable shared by all four gospels, he mentioned) was of the loaves and the fishes and feeding the 5,000.

Jim mused that the two disciples involved in the parable are a perfect parallel for our own times. Philip, upon seeing the huge number of people and realizing that there was no way to feed them, came and said, "What are we to do?" And isn't that what many of us are hearing and saying ourselves these days--either in reference to things happening in our own country or things going on in the broader world? His question resonated loudly with the audience, you could just hear it in the silence.

The second disciple, Andrew, finds the boy with a few loaves and a little fish and brings him to Jesus, despite the absurdity of the amount. Jim's point was clear, simple, and probably the only "answer" to: What are we to do?...we gather up the little we have and bring it to Jesus and it will be taken from there. (He didn't go into the particulars! This was just a parallelism in the realm of what-do-the-scriptures-mean-today genre.)

Months ago, Jim posed a similar question and that day his answer was, "Follow Me." And follow the Holy One, we do.

A couple weeks in the summer find the hydrangea in front of the Blessed Mother statue and the clematis in back of it, both blooming at the same time. This is the week. Sr. Cecilia tells me that the statue came from the convent in Sharon, PA where many of our sisters ministered and quite a few grew up.