“Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?'” …Philip answered him, “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.” – John 6:13-14
I often feel like I am running low. Like I don’t have enough time, energy, money, or other resources to do the things that God is calling me to do. I know in my mind that I have a “poverty mindset” when it comes to my time and energy. Even as I write this, I’m feeling like I don’t have all the time I’d like for my writing. I walk by the laundry-monster next to the washing machine (that’s a big pile of laundry that seems to grow on its own!), and I feel like I will never have enough energy to tame it. I sense that I’m falling short on some of my duties as a wife and mother now that I’m working full time once again. I push myself to get my work task-list done, but there’s always another task added. No matter how much I have, it’s never enough. Can you relate?
Generosity Leads to Abundance
Now read this Sunday’s Gospel passage on the multiplication of the loaves (John 6:1-15) with this poverty mindset as the lens. There would never be enough money to buy food for all the people gathered there. But then a little boy came forward with the little that he had to share with the people. What a selfless, generous, trusting act. He had to know what he had wouldn’t have made a difference when talking about 5,000 men plus women and children. “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?” (John 6:9). The amount of the need didn’t matter; the amount of his generosity did. He gave the little that he had and the Lord made up for the lack.
Not only was there enough to feed everyone there, there was still an abundance left over! “When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, ‘Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.’ So they collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat’” (John 6:12-13). Amazing–God gave them more than enough. He just needed a little from someone to begin with.
Here’s the first key to overcoming a poverty mindset, not to focus on what we lack, but to instead focus on what we do have to offer. When we focus on what we have in our hands, then offer it to Jesus, He can work miracles to provide for us! It’s hard to believe, but it’s the truth. This truth reminds me of a reflection I wrote a few years ago about the paradox of giving what we have little of called “Generosity of Heart”.
God’s Abundant Goodness
Focusing on what we do have and being generous with that opens us up to move away from a poverty mindset and into an “abundance” mindset. Jesus came “that we might have life, and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). He will multiply what we lack. Read John 2 for another example of when Jesus multiplied something. He provided for the newly married couple who ran out of wine at the Wedding Feast at Cana. He turned the water for purification rituals in the six stone jars into wine. We’re talking about an amazing amount of wine. Each jar held 20 to 30 gallons of water: that’s 600 to 900 bottles of the finest wine the world has ever known. Jesus doesn’t just make enough so-so wine so the bride and groom could serve their guests; He gave them the choicest wine to last for years. Mary saw the need of the couple and spoke up for them. She trusted that Jesus would provide and confidently told the servants, “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5). This shows Mary as both our intercessor and model for prayer. God wants to bless us abundantly; all we need to do is come to Him in prayer and ask Him to provide us with what we’re lacking in our lives, be it love, energy, joy, purpose, or whatever else we’re running short of. And perhaps here is a second key: asking Mary to intercede for us where we’re feeling low and lacking, and then trusting in God the Father’s goodness. After all, we have a good Father who will provide for us!
“And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the holy Spirit to those who ask him?” Luke 11:9-1
The Source of Abundant Life: The Eucharist
Is it any coincidence that these two examples of Jesus multiplying the things we lack are bread and wine? “The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life” (CCC 1324). Our spiritual needs are all sprung from the source of all our good works and holiness: the Most Blessed Sacrament of His Body and Blood. The bread, which He transforms into His Body and the wine, which He transforms into His Blood. This miracle which is multiplied over the whole world countless times a day, feeding millions of people for two millennia! The Bread of Life and Sacred Blood that never runs out, flowing from Christ’s sacrifice to feed his disciples kneeling in pews, waiting to be fed. We are now the 5,000 that He feeds, multiplied over the generations. We receive this Holy Sacrament of the Altar and accept the abundant life God offers, filling up within us all that we lack.
Jesus, I can feel so drained and lacking at times. Help me to trust in the Father’s goodness and come to prayer when I’m feeling like I don’t have enough to give others. Mary, Blessed Mother, pray for me to Your Son when you notice that my “wine has run out.” Holy Spirit, help me live in the truth of the Father’s abundant life and love instead of the lie that I have to do everything by myself.