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This is a teaching that Fr. Nathan O’Halloran, SJ gave at our Wednesday night prayer meeting some years ago.
Jesus tells his disciples, “Give them [the hungry crowd] some food yourselves.” What if we look at it with this punctuation — “Give them some food: yourselves.” Like the disciples, we’d rather give anything but ourselves. Because to give ourselves requires a tremendous amount of love.
If you want to make lasting changes, we need to start small. Not with grand New Year’s resolutions that we never keep. It’s a long process to get to the point where we can give ourselves as food to others.
The saints didn’t get there overnight. Mother Teresa didn’t get there from one day to the next. It was a slow process made up of many steps, many small obediences.
Father Thomas exemplifies this. He gave of himself constantly to those who needed him, but he didn’t get there overnight. It was a slow process.
Scripture:
- Mark 6:36
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