July 31, 2024

Dear Parishioners,

There is no matter we cannot entrust to God, who provides us with our daily and eternal bread.

It takes time, in relationships, to build trust. We learn to have faith in one another based upon our encounters with each other and how well our expectations are communicated and met. Consider children who learn to trust based on the attention and care they receive before they even begin to realize there is a world outside of themselves. If their needs are not met at this stage, they will have difficulty trusting others when they are older. Or consider our relationships with advisors and mentors; if they prove trustworthy in small matters, we will consider them so in more significant matters.

The same is true of our relationship with God. Abraham had doubts and some incredulity when God first called him and promised him a family and a future. Generations later, God called Abraham’s descendants, the Israelites, out of Egypt. They relied on a blessed assurance from him on their journey through the desert to the Promised Land, a journey we meet them on today. Hungry and groaning, they are worried as to whether God would sustain them in the desert. God does, of course, giving them bread from heaven to meet their needs. 

This act of providing their daily bread was a significant moment for God’s chosen people and solidified a foundation of trust as the basis for the covenant between them. It was a foundation that grew to undergird the new covenant, when God would send from heaven, and feed his people, the bread of life.

We see this in the Gospel, when Jesus had provided loaves and fishes for all. The time had come for God to feed them not only perishable, daily bread, but bread that endures for eternal life. Jesus tells them about this bread from God that gives life to the world. They ask to have this bread always, and Jesus tells them, I am the bread of life. They have trusted God in small, daily matters; now they can trust God in this greater, eternal matter. They can receive his Son and never hunger, never thirst, again. 

Generations later, God continues to feed us our daily bread and the bread of life, given to us in the Eucharist. These are so freely given, so readily available to us, that we may forget how we came to rely on God to always provide, and what this means. From the time of Abraham and Moses, God has been providing us with what we need. From him we have what we need to sustain us for daily and eternal life. There is no hunger or need he cannot fill; there is no matter – small or great – we cannot entrust to him.

Let us entrust these small and great matters to God and focus on thanksgiving and praise for the sustenance of daily and eternal life that we are so graciously given. We can do this when we celebrate the Eucharist, and we can remind ourselves daily at every meal. As we do, let us place all our trust in him, and never hunger or thirst again. 


God Love Ya!
Fr. Reilly