Seventeenth Sunday

Sometimes I get asked about lectio divina and how it works for me.  What people want to know is how do you discern what the Lord is whispering to you from your own thoughts.  Well, for one, there is no daily guarantee I will hear anything.  But when I do, I recognize it because it usually comes from out of left field, left field being that deep interior place where the Lord lives within me.  I suppose that I have done this long enough now to tell the difference between my thoughts and the whispers of the Lord.   This morning's whisper, as I sat with John's version of the miracle of loaves and fishes, was such.  What I actually stuck out for me was that Jesus asked the multitude to recline.  Since the proper posture for teaching in those times was for the teacher to sit and the assembled stand, I thought it was an indication of  Jesus' desire to be closer to them.   And then came this thought.  "If I could do this with some loaves and fishes, imagine what I can do with you."   It was clear and true.   We can look at all the Eucharistic symbolism of this reading, but at the base of it is what?  What Jesus can do for you.  Look what He can do for you when you are in union through the Eucharist.