A Book Exerpt
Give Them Some Food Yourselves! (Mark 6:37)
(An excerpt from the book Mother Elvira--Comunità Cenacolo pages 34 and 35)
As a Community, for quite a while we felt a strong and urgent need, to take the trouble and to inconvenience ourselves, in order to proclaim and give testimony to the living presence of Jesus among us.
Today, once again, He is before a hungry crowd longing to hear Him speak. He is asking us, like He asked the Apostles, to give the multitude food to eat, to give ourselves as bread broken at the table of our world that hungers from lack of hope, joy and peace. Now is the time for us to have courage like the unknown boy who had faith in Jesus and gave the little he had: five loaves and two fish. In the eyes of the world that was not enough to feed five thousand people... but Jesus' way is a desire to need us, our hands, our heart, our face, the little that we are, to satisfy the hunger of humanity. It seems that Jesus asks for our help to make us feel that we are a living part of God's miracle and are precious to Him. His desire to need us is because, first and foremost, we must convince ourselves that our generosity, courage and strong will to be good, "satisfy" our own hunger. I believe that on that day the young boy returned home with his heart full," not only of bread and fish, but "satiated" with the love and generosity of his own goodness. In the hands of Jesus this was multiplied and became food for everyone.
Today, Jesus waits for you and me. He will make this miracle happen, but it is you who must freely give of yourself and then you can enter into this miracle, born from the heart of Christ, of love and compassion. Today our Western World is rich with bread and fish, carelessly throwing it away as it wishes, yet it is dying of a hunger that is much deeper: a hunger for God, a hunger for peace, hope and love. In the Community we pick up and receive the wounded fruits of this world: the young who have everything yet are sad with a heavy heart. We offer to them the only bread that can satisfy the heart of man, the Bread of Life: Jesus of Nazareth. For 20 years, we have witnessed the miracle of that Bread of Life that heals, frees, transforms, gives peace and truly satisfies the heart of man. Without first waiting to have our "baskets" full, to be perfect and consistent in everything, we must have the courage and strength to announce the Good News. We are those five pieces of bread and two fish; we are the poor and will remain poor forever. However when He sees our generosity and courage, He gives us the miracle of feeling the joy, amazement and flavor of the fruits of His work so that it almost seems that we are the heroes. This is the reason that I live, suffer, rejoice and pray every day. This has satiated my life, making me joyful today, to give myself to you, as "food" to eat.
Pope John Paul II, from an audience with young people in March 1979
"We must pray because we are fragile and culpable. We need to admit humbly and truly that we are poor creatures, with confused ideas... We are fragile and weak, and in constant need of interior strength and consolation. Prayer gives us strength to rise up from indifference and guilt, if we have had the misfortune to give in to temptation and weakness. Prayer gives light by which to see and to judge from God's perspective and from eternity. That is why you must not give up praying. Prayer is a duty, but it is also a joy because it is a dialogue with God through Jesus Christ."