Daily Gospel Reflection
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February 11, 2023
In those days when there again was a great crowd without anything to eat,
Jesus summoned the disciples and said,
“My heart is moved with pity for the crowd,
because they have been with me now for three days
and have nothing to eat.
If I send them away hungry to their homes,
they will collapse on the way,
and some of them have come a great distance.”
His disciples answered him, “Where can anyone get enough bread
to satisfy them here in this deserted place?”
Still he asked them, “How many loaves do you have?”
They replied, “Seven.”
He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground.
Then, taking the seven loaves he gave thanks, broke them,
and gave them to his disciples to distribute,
and they distributed them to the crowd.
They also had a few fish.
He said the blessing over them
and ordered them distributed also.
They ate and were satisfied.
They picked up the fragments left over–seven baskets.
There were about four thousand people.
He dismissed the crowd and got into the boat with his disciples
and came to the region of Dalmanutha.
For three days, a crowd of 4,000 people listened to Jesus preach without a plan for where to find dinner. How could that even happen?
In that crowd of 4,000, there must have been busy people with jobs and lives waiting for them back home. There were anxious, exhausted, sick, lost, and lonely people in that crowd. There were kind, loving, faithful, and energetic people. There were powerful and rich people. There were weak and poor people. There were people like you and me.
Somehow, all these people managed to let go of all the other things that they had to get done and just listen to the words of Jesus—for three full days.
These people had the faith to sit and listen–without worry about tomorrow, without worry about today. They just trusted that it would all be okay. They trusted that the words of Jesus Christ were worth hunger and uncertainty.
My aunt recently told me, “Let God be big.” I am a planner. But if I always try and plan for every eventuality beforehand, I might never take the kind of trusting risk that the crowd took during those three days.
If we never take the risk of trusting God, we will never see how big God really is. God has it taken care of. Sometimes, all we need to do is sit still and listen.
Prayer
Jesus, Lamb of God, you call us to walk in your footsteps, by taking up our daily crosses, and giving our lives away in love. Help us to accept our daily burdens on behalf of others as expressions of love for you and your people. Help us to see how our acts of selfless love, inspired by you, bring your saving presence into the world. Give us the strength and generosity of spirit to carry our burdens joyfully. Amen.
Saint of the Day
On February 11, 1858, a poor 14-year-old shepherd girl named Bernadette Soubirous was collecting firewood near Lourdes, France. She saw a bright light, and Mary appeared before her in a natural hollow of rock in a cave on the shore of a river.
Mary appeared with a youthful face, and she wore a white garment with a blue belt and carried a rosary. Over the course of 18 appearances, she identified herself as the Immaculate Conception. Mary told Bernadette to drink from a spring within the cave and to tell Church authorities to build a shrine on the site. Since those appearances, more than 200 million pilgrims have visited Lourdes, many reporting cures from the miraculous spring.
Father Sorin visited Lourdes, France, on one of his many trips back to France in the late 1800s to confer with the Holy Cross community. He was moved by the display of faith he saw there and began conversations at Notre Dame to construct a replica shrine on campus.
Notre Dame’s Grotto was constructed in 1896 (after Sorin’s death) and replicates the shrine at Lourdes on a one-seventh scale. A stone from Lourdes is implanted in the Grotto wall. The other boulders were unearthed from nearby farm fields, some weighing two or three tons. Workers, in digging the foundation, opened a spring of water in the same relative position as the miraculous spring that emerged at Lourdes—that spring now flows through the fountain on the left side of the Grotto.
In addition to the Grotto, Our Lady of Lourdes is depicted in a large mural in the Basilica, shown in today's featured image.
Our Lady of Lourdes, who brings healing and hope to your children in France and throughout the world—pray for us!