Out of nothing the Lord produces great things. Today's Gospel account about the feeding of the 5,000 using the meager loaves and fishes is a wonderful example of how the Lord will take our small and humble offerings -- if we make ourselves available -- and bear fruit beyond any harvest that we could imagine.
In 1962, President Kennedy hosted a dinner at the White House for Nobel Prize Winners and he quipped that it was the "greatest collection of intellect to dine [t]here since Thomas Jefferson ate [t]here alone." Each of us of us knows at least one "Thomas Jefferson" in our lives -- someone whose little finger seems to contain more talent than most of our bodies. It can be very tempting to look at these talents and to compare them to the gifts which the Lord has given us. We may even be tempted to believe that those with more visible (or a seemingly more useful array of) natural talents are more important or more successful in Lord's work of building the Kingdom.
Not so. Not so at all. The Lord sees the manner in which we offer our talents; even if we esteem them to be less-than-adequate, the Lord will produce great works for His kingdom -- if we let Him. Let us pray for the grace to place our gifts at the service of the Kingdom with great trust in the Lord's ability to do great deeds with small and loving offerings.
"If often happens that a person, mean and feeble both in body and mind, and who only attempts small things, will do them with so much charity that they far surpass the merit of great and exalted actions."
St. Francis de Sales
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