[00:00] Praise be Jesus and Mary. Today's liturgy speaks to us of, well, the great mercy of our Lord, the great love that He has for us, and the fact that He always takes care of us.

[00:34] In the first reading, our Lord is saying through the prophet Isaiah, "Come to me, I will give you what you need. Come to me, come to me." He will take care of us. In the second reading now, we might ask, well, what about all the difficulties we go through in life? I know the trials, all the pain, the suffering, the evil, all going on all around us. In St. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, we see in the second reading names about everything

[01:08] that's going on, even in our own world today, like hunger, nakedness, thirst, excursions, whatever. Names of just about all of it, right, persecution, famine, distress, the sword, peril, all of it. It's all happening. No, not even that will deter us from our love for God. Once we have that, we are secure, automatic.

[01:38] We already are, right? And you realize that the saints, they will tell you that. They will all tell you that. I have God's love for me. That's all I need. All right? Or as St. Teresa of Avila puts it, "Let nothing disturb you. Nothing at all. God alone suffices." We have that. We have all we need. And our Lord gives us the example in the gospel passage we just heard, all right, the feeding

[02:11] of the 5,000 plus with just the five loaves and two fish. He does satisfy us. He will take care of us. We need not get so over-anxious, so excited. He is there, even if it seems like He's not. He is always there. He is taking care of us. Do we trust Him? Do we give ourselves to Him? Do we let Him take care of us?

[02:43] Now, as I've often said, we see these things on a human level, on a natural level, but Scripture is also always pointing to us at the spiritual level. So it is here, particularly in today's gospel passage, because this feeding of the 5,000 with just the two fish and the five loaves also prefigures the Eucharist. Our Lord takes care of us spiritually as well.

[03:15] You see, He gives Himself to us in Holy Communion, and He remains with us day and night in the Blessed Sacrament. He is here. He will satisfy us. He can take care of us, and He will. Do we let Him? Do we come to Him, as we were bidden in the first reading? Do we come to Him? Are we willing to? I recall in a homily many, many years ago, the Father was telling us about a woman who came to Him, saying, "Oh, my son is doing this and that," or whatever it was, drug addiction,

[03:48] whatever it was, causing all kinds of problems, all these psychological problems, and the Father said, "Go to our Lord in the Eucharist and pray to Him." She came back in about four weeks after that. She said, we'll start repeating the same things all over again, but my son is still doing this and that. And the Father asked her, "Did you do what I told you? Did you go before our Lord in the Eucharist and pray to Him?" She unfortunately said no, but our Lord will take care of us if only we will let Him.

[04:28] He is here. He is with us, waiting for us to come to Him and let Him give us what we need. And remember, what we need more than anything else is our union with Him, our salvation. That's the most important thing. That's our whole goal here in this life, union with God, paradise, heaven. That's our goal. But we have to let Him bring us there.

[04:59] We have to do our part. We can't just sit back. We have to come to Him, give ourselves to Him, pray to Him. He will, and always does, take care of us. Might not be what we expect. Again, another thing I like to often preach about, we pray, "Oh, I asked for this, I asked for that, but our Lord never listens. I pray all the time, but He doesn't listen. Oh, He does listen. He doesn't answer our prayers. Yes, He does, always, always.

[05:32] Remember, it will be what is best for us. And He knows, even better than we do, what is best for us. It will always be the best. That's how much God loves us, and He does love us. We must love Him in return. That is our goal, union with Him. Let Him, that's all, let Him work with us, through us, bring us closer to Himself.

[06:02] Praise be Jesus and Mary. Amen. Amen.