Jn 6:1-15 (1-21)

 

 

The very different solution. Multiplication by Division, in the itinerancy

 

The simple Mystery. Vocation to offer to the world

 

(Jn 6,1-15)

 

"Now a great crowd followed him, for they saw the signs he did on the sick" (v.2).

"There is a little boy who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what is this to so many?" (v.5).

"Jesus therefore knowing that they were about to come and kidnap him to make him king, withdrew again to the mountain by himself" (v.15).

 

"Man is the limit-being who has no limit" [All Brothers No.150].

In our hearts we have a great desire for fulfilment and Happiness. The Father has put it there, He Himself satisfies it - but He wants us associated with His work - inside and outside of us.

The Son reflects God's design in His compassion for crowds in need of everything and - despite the plethora of teachers and experts - lacking any authentic teaching.

His solution is very different from that of all 'spiritual' guides, because he does not overlook us with an indirect paternalism (vv.5-6) that wipes away tears, heals wounds, erases humiliation, from the outside.

It invites us to make use of what we are and have, even though it may seem ridiculous. But it teaches in an absolutely clear way that by shifting energies, prodigious results are achieved.

This is how we respond in Christ to the world's great problems: by recovering the condition of the 'viator' man - a being of passage, his essential mark - and by sharing goods; not letting everyone make do.

Our raw nakedness, the vicissitudes and experiences of our many brothers and sisters, who are different, are resources not to be evaluated with distrust, "as dangerous competitors or enemies" of our fulfilment [FT no.152].

Not only will the little that we bring with us suffice to satiate us, but it will advance for others and with identical fullness of truth, human, epochal [vv.12-13: the particular passage insists on the Semitic symbolism of the number "twelve"; in Mk 8:8 and Mt 15:34-37 that of the number "seven" takes over].

In Christ, everyone can inaugurate a new Time, and Salvation is already at hand, because the people gather spontaneously around Him, coming as they are, with the burden of so many different needs (v.2).

The new people of God are not a crowd of chosen and pure people.

Everyone brings with them problems, which the Lord heals - but healing not with proxy measures (cf. Mt 14:16; Mk 6:37; Lk 9:13), as if from above or from without.

In short: another world is possible, but through breaking one's own even miserable bread and companion.

An authentic solution, if one brings it out from within, and by standing in the middle - not in front, not at the top.

 

The well-known symbolism of the "five loaves" and "two fish" (v.9) - in Christological perspective, means:

Assume one's own tradition, even legalistic tradition, which has served as a wise base nourishment (5 books of the Torah), then one's own history and sapiential afflatus (Writings: Kethubhiim) as well as prophetic (Nevi'im: Prophets).

[As St Augustine said: "The Word of God that is daily explained to you and in a certain sense 'broken' is also daily Bread" (Sermo 58, IV: PL 38,395). Complete food: basic food and "companion" - historical and ideal, in code and in deed].

 

The place of Revelation was to be the place of "thunderbolts", on a "mountain" steaming like a furnace (Ex 19:18). But finally even Elijah's violent zeal had to recant (1 Kings 19:12).

Even to women and men of the other side (v.1) the Son reveals a Father who does not simply erase infirmities: he makes them understood as a place that is preparing a personal development, and that of the Community.

He imagined that in the time of the Messiah, all the needy would disappear (Is 35:5ff.). Golden age: everything at the top, no abyss.

In Jesus - Bread of poor barley, but distributed - an unusual fullness of times is manifested; apparently nebulous and fragile (v.9) but real and capable of restarting everyone, and relationships.

The Spirit of God acts not by descending like a bolt of lightning from above, but by activating in us capacities that appear intangible, yet are able to regroup our dispersed [classified as insubstantial - involving the everyday summary - and re-evaluate it] being.

 

The Incarnation reweaves our hearts, in dignity and promotion; it truly unfolds, because it not only drags obstacles away: it rests on them and does not erase them at all.

Thus it surpasses them, but transmutes - posing new life.

Lymph that draws juice and sprouts Flowers from the one muddy, fertile soil, and communicates them.

Solidarity to which all are invited, not just those deemed to be in a state of 'perfection' and compactness.

Our shortcomings make us attentive, and unique. They are not to be despised, but taken up, placed in the Son's hands and energised (vv.11-13).

Falls themselves can be a valuable sign; in Christ, they are no longer reductive humiliations, but path markers (v.2).Perhaps we are not making the best use and investment of our resources.

Thus collapses can quickly turn into rises - different, unpacked. And seeking total completion in the Communion.

In this way, in the ideal of realising the Vocation, as well as intuiting the type of contribution to be made, nothing is better than a living environment, which does not clip the wings: lively fraternity in the exchange of qualities, and coexistence.

Not so much to dampen the jolts, but so that we are enabled to build stores of wisdom not calibrated by nomenclature - which everyone can draw on, even those who are different and far from us.

If a shortcoming is found here too, it will be to teach us to be present in the world in perhaps other and further directions, or to bring out mission and creative maturity - not to remain fixated on partiality and minutiae.

 

Thus, together, the 'no moments' immediately become a springboard for not stagnating in the same situations as always; regenerating, proceeding far elsewhere.

And the failures they throw into the balance serve to make us realise what we had not noticed, thus deviating from a conformist destiny.

They force us to seek suggestions, different horizons and relationships, a completion we had not imagined.

In short, our Heaven is intertwined with flesh, earth and our dust: a Supernatural that lies within and below, even in the souls of those who have collapsed to the ground; not behind the clouds.

It is the direct contact with our humus filled with royal juices that regenerates us and even creates us: as new women and men, newly re-born in sharing.

The image of the Kingdom in the puny Eucharist does not eliminate defect and death.

It takes them up and transfigures them into strengths; creating encounter, dialogue, preference for the minimal - and frankly propulsive - New Covenant.

Unfortunately, the exaggerated targeting of films about the Jesus 'multiplying' abundance... leads completely astray.

It breeds the devotees of accretion, who disdain division (triplicators of money, property, titles, goals, relationships that matter, and so on).

Conversely, in Christ who distributes all things, we become like an actualised and propulsive body of sensitive witnesses [and living Scriptures].

Infants in the Lord, we swim in this different Water - sometimes perhaps outwardly veiled, or muddy and murky. Finally made transparent even as it is surrendered, filled with compassion and benevolent.

The old exclusive puddle of religion that does not dare the risk of exodus and Faith (v.2) would not have helped us to assimilate the proposal of the inferior Messiah, who solves the world's problems without immediate lightning bolts or shortcuts.

He is in us who have embraced his proposal of life: the Father's Initiative-Response, support in the unethereal Journey in search of the Hope of the poor - of all of us destitute waiting.

 

The allusion to the 'five' or 'seven' 'loaves' (multiplied because they are divided) reinforces the quotations concerning the malleable magma of biblical icons.

In this case, those of Moses and Elijah: figures from the five Books of the Pentateuch [the First Foods], plus the two sections of Prophets and Writings.

All together: fullness of food and wisdom for the soul, called to proceed beyond the surrounding hedgerows, breaking the banks of the enslaved mentality.

Nourishment-basis of the human-divine spirit, to which is added a nourishment that involves us.

[As St. Augustine: "The Word of God that is daily explained to you and in a certain sense 'broken' is also daily Bread" (Sermo 58, IV: PL 38, 395)].

Complete food: basic food and companion food - historical and ideal, in code and in deed.

We become in Christ as an actualised and propulsive corpus of sensitive witnesses and Scriptures; admittedly reduced, not yet established and lacking in heroic phenomena, but emphatically sapiential and practical.

Announcers, sharers without resounding proclamations of self-sufficiency.

Never enclosed within archaic fences - always in the making - therefore able to perceive unknown tracks.

And to 'break the Bread'... that is to say, to be active, to go further, to share the little - to feed, to overflow - multiplying the listening and the action of God; and to make even the desperate regain esteem.

We are children.

As a few and little ones who do not wallow in competitions that make life toxic - indeed: called in the first person to write a singular, empathic and sacred Word-event.

Infants in the Lord, we swim in this different Water.

Sometimes perhaps outwardly veiled or muddy and murky; finally made transparent if only because it is surrendered, compassionate and benevolent.

The old exclusive puddle of religion that does not dare the risk of Faith (v.2) would not have helped us to assimilate the proposal of Jesus the Messiah, Son of God, Saviour - a well-known acrostic of the Greek word "Ichtys" [fish].He is the Father's Initiative-Response, support in the unethereal journey in search of the Hope of the poor - of all of us destitute waiting.

 

The working Faith thus has the Eucharist as its emblem, a revolution of sacredness. It seems strange, for us who have grown accustomed to it.

In fact, the purpose of evangelisation is to participate in and emancipate the integral being from all that threatens it, not only in its extreme limit: also in its everyday actions - to the point of seeking the communion of goods.

In Mk 6 the prodigy is placed after the earful towards the apostles, called "aside" for a verification of their uncertain preaching [Jesus announced as the glorious Messiah].

In Mk 8 [similarly] after the opening of the "senses" of the [same disciple taken "aside"] deaf and stuttering (Mk 7:31-37).

Jn 6 follows the episodes of the return to Galilee, the healing of the civil servant's son, the healing of the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda, and the Apology of Jesus himself.

In short, the Source and Summit Sign of the community of sons is a creative gesture that imposes a shift in vision, an absolutely new eye.

 

Faced with the destitution of the many caused by the greed of the few, the attitude of the authentic Church does not take pleasure in emblems and fervour, nor in partial calls to distinguish itself in almsgiving.

The breaking of the Bread takes over from the Manna dropped from above in the desert (cf. Mk 8:4; Jn 6:2) and entails its distribution - not only in particular situations.

There is no settling, in multiplying life for all.

This is the attitude of the living Body of Christ [thaumaturgic, not the miracle-worker] who feels called to be active in every circumstance.

Grateful adherence must lead us to the gift and sharing of the 'bread'.

If Eucharistic participation does not lead only to punctual alms-giving, external pietism and mannerly welfarism, there is the Result:

Women and men will eat, remain full, and there will be food left over for others. Not all of God's intended guests are yet present.

We note that it had not even occurred to some of the disciples that the solution might come from the people themselves (v.7) and their spirit - not from the patronage of the leaders or some individual benefactor.

Unexpected agreement: the question of food is resolved not from above, but from within the people and thanks to the few loaves they brought with them (v.9).

There is no resolution with the verb 'multiply' - i.e. 'increase' [relationships that count, increase property, pile up wiles].

The only therapy is the coexistence of 'breaking', 'giving', 'handing out', 'distributing' (v.11 Greek text).

And everyone is involved, no one privileged.

 

At that time, competitiveness and class mentality characterised the pyramidal society of the empire - and it was already starting to infiltrate the small community, just beginning.

As if the Lord and the God of profit could live side by side.

It is the communion of the needy that conversely takes centre stage in the unimaginative Church; capable of bringing opposites together.

Real sharing acts as the professor of the ubiquitous veteran, pretentious, only to be converted.

The germ of their 'durability' should be not altitude and role, but love.

Such is the only meaning of sacred gestures, not other projects tinged with prevarication, or appearance.

 

The 'belonging' astound.

For the Lord, the distant ones, still poised in their choices, are full participants in the messianic banquet - without preclusions, nor disciplines of the arcane with nerve-racking expectations.

Conversely, that Canteen presses in favour of others who are to be called. For a kind of re-establishment of the original Unity.

 

In short, the Redemption does not belong to elites concerned about the stability of their rule - which it is even the weak who must sustain.

 

Saved life comes to us by incorporation.

 

 

To internalise and live the message:

 

Have you ever broken your bread, passed on happiness and made recoveries that renew relationships, putting people who do not even have self-esteem back on their feet? Or have you favoured disinterest, chains, elite attitudes?

 

 

 

Concord and compromise, or chaos and different stability

 

(Jn 6:16-21)

 

John narrates the episode differently from the Synoptics: not so much as the outcome of the communion of the loaves, as the manifestation of Christ.

The centre of gravity of the narrative is in the presentation that Jesus makes of his Person: "I am" (v.20), self-revelation of the God of the Exodus (3:14: "I am who I will be" - that is, "you will understand who I am by what I will do").

This is to put an end to the tergiversations in the interpretation of his figure: the Son of God is not a healer nor a miracle-worker, but the Deliverer from whom the people expect the Manna that heartens them, the land that is promised to them, salvation from death.The passage is a parable of the church in the grip of the troubled waters of the abyss, dominated by doubt, uncertainty, a wavering faith, still lacking a blessed and everlasting seal.

In the hard and unsupported going, we suddenly catch the Lord coming - he comes close out of the blue, to accompany the vertigo and the torment.

It is like the very Word of God expected in the Liturgy: it immediately makes us touch shore... thanks to the free insertion into the Mystery of the divine thought and condition.

 

Our life proceeds towards the opposite shore, where the Master already is. We go in hope, but sometimes adversity threatens to drown us, and with us they seem to drag the whole boat down.

Only the Lord "walks on the sea", that is, he advances and overcomes death. If we welcome him, we realise that every element is in his power: and everything serves to revive us, even the headwind.

The Invisible Friend guides, realises infallibly, brings us to 'shore' - an ultimate condition that the force of the waves cannot affect, even when we have the feeling of being dragged elsewhere by the waves.

Using paraphrases from the book of Exodus, Jn seeks to help (his communities) understand the Mystery of the Person of Jesus and the vocational reality that can envelop and characterise us when we do not reject its Call.

The internal debate about the Messiah - and the churches' relationship with the world - also accentuated dissension and uncertainty.

Some Jewish converts considered Christ to be a character all in line with their mentality and tradition, in agreement with First Testament prophecies and figures.

Conversely, some pagans who had accepted the Lord advocated an understanding with the worldly mentality - a sort of agreement between Jesus and the empire, which the evangelist considers an idolatrous contamination (the temptation of the pagan crowd to make him king immediately precedes the passage: vv.14-15).

The situation of the tiny Christian families in the empire was dark, doubtful or conflicted inside and out. Jesus seemed absent and the sea rough, the wind contrary.

And yet, in the very condition of tossed pilgrims, in the essential Faith one experienced a strange and different stability: staying against the tide.

Cultural marginalisation, unknowns, confrontations and trials did not swallow up the believers, on the contrary they made them more resolute and expeditious (v.21) - according to the voice present in each one's soul.

A crossing to Freedom that came from the welcoming perception and chaos of external securities.

 

So our affair remains in the balance: even today we move forward wavering - as on a small boat tossed about by earthquakes, even global ones, that seem to want to drag down our whole life.

Episodes that make us realise how much Christ's friendship is worth to us and what it conveys. Only the Lord overcomes the fright of upheavals, but he does so without rushing in, and without established patterns that would frame him forever (it would be like making him perish).

When we welcome his Person in a simple and forthright manner, we realise that there is another realm, unaligned. Then we can seize everything to regenerate ourselves, even the pitfalls, the forks, the very pitfalls of (seemingly) disruptive evil.

Who then can calm the storms... in the way of ecclesial and (at the same time) personal growth? In short: can the Exodus be re-created?

 

From the earliest times, Faith in the Person of Christ the Messiah was already shaken, wavering; not relaxed. The disciples did not possess the same quiet confidence in the Master as they did in the Father.

Yet, in the very situation of precarious wayfarers, always off the conformist track - in reinterpreting the Son's 'madness' they contacted the same deep emotions that had been his...

And in Him one was always reborn renewed, original, deeper; going beyond any reassuring but bland situation - which no longer said anything. And doing so from visceral nuclei of experience.

A crossing towards freedom that came from clinging to Jesus alone, in the chaos of certainties.

For a discordant permanence... where the unusual that cleanses from the 'old', habituated and stagnant appeared.

Upsets for unequal activations of being a woman and a man of one's own time, not to shy away from dialogue, debate, pressing emergencies - which want to take us elsewhere.

Even today, it is the path of non-habitual and critical growth that reveals the Lord capable of manifesting his quiet strength, restoring the upset elements to the calm (energetic and preparatory) lively within itself of new desires, which urge us not to close our gaze.

 

The direction of travel imposed by Jesus on his followers seems to go against the grain, and brazenly breaks the rules accepted by all.

While the disciples fondle nationalist desires, the Master begins to make it clear that He is not the vulgarly expected Messiah, restorer of the defunct empire of David or the Caesars.The Kingdom of God is open to all mankind, who in those turbulent times sought security, acceptance, points of reference. In the first assemblies everyone could find home and shelter (Mt 13:32c; Mk 4:32b).

But the apostles and church veterans not infrequently seemed averse to proposals of openness, hospitality and risk; they remained insensitive to an overly broad idea of fraternity - which displaced them.

It is still a live and very serious problem.

The teaching and reminder imposed on the disciples is always to cross to the other shore (Mk 4:35; Lk 8:22; Jn 6:17), that is, not to keep for themselves, but to communicate the riches of the Father to the 'pagans', even though they are considered infected and infamous.

Yet already his own people did not want to know about reckless disproportions that would actually make the Son of God's action stand out. They were calibrated to common purist religiosity and a circumscribed ideology of power.

The resistance to the divine commission and the resulting lacerating internal disputes seemed to unleash a great and dangerous storm in the assemblies of believers (Mt 8:24; Mk 4:37; Lk 8:23; Jn 6:18).

The storm, however, concerned only the disciples, the only ones who were dismayed; not Jesus "who walked on the sea and came near the boat" (Jn 6:19: this is the Risen One, in his final, divine condition).

 

What happens "inside" is not a mere reflection of what happens "outside"! This is the error to be corrected.

Such identification blocks and makes life chronic, starting with the handling of emotionally relevant situations - which have their own meaning.

They carry a significant and fundamental appeal, they introduce a different eye, excavation and dialogue.

 

In short, even today we are confused, embarrassed, and chaos rages? Paradoxically, we are on the right path, the essential one; but we must not allow ourselves to be seized by fear.

In Him, we are imbued with a different vision of danger.

Says the Tao Tê Ching (xxii): "The saint does not see by himself, therefore he is enlightened. Even in straits.

Indeed, it seems that Jesus expressly wanted dark moments of confrontation and doubt for the apostles themselves.

Even for us, even if we were church leaders... because otherwise there will be no cleansing from repetitive convictions.

Textbook expectations (and the habit of setting up conformist harmonies) block the flowering of what we are and hope for.

Especially what is annoying or even 'against' has something decisive to tell us. Even in the little boat of churches (Mk 4:36), discomfort must express itself: "And they were afraid" (Jn 6:19c).

All this is to revive the essence of each person and of the community itself, to introduce change (hidden or repressed) and trigger it in the most effective way... by contact with the hidden or primordial virtues.

More than the opposing frictions and conflicting external events... anxiety, impression and anguish come in fact from the very fear of facing the normal or decisive questions of existence.

This is out of mistrust: feeling in danger perhaps only because we perceive ourselves to be intimately undeveloped, incapable of other conversation, of discovering and reworking, converting or remodelling.

The fatigue of questioning ourselves and the suffering that the adventure of Faith holds, will also fade amidst the discomfort of the rough sea - which precisely does not want us to return to 'those of before'.

It is enough to disengage oneself from the idea of stability, even religious stability, and listen to life as it is, embracing it; even in its throng of bumps, bitterness, shattered hopes for harmony, sorrows - engaging with this flood of new peaks, and encountering one's own profound nature.

The best vaccine against the anxieties of the adventure together with the Risen One on the changing waves of the unexpected will be precisely: not to avoid worries upstream - on the contrary, to go towards them and welcome them; to recognise them, to let them happen.

Even in times of health emergencies, the apprehensions that seem to want to devastate us, come to us as preparatory forces for other joys that wish to break through - new cosmic attunements; for the amazement starting from ourselves (and guiding the hereafter: "and immediately the boat came to the land where they were headed" John 6:21).

 

Our little boat is in an inverted, upside-down, unequal stability; uncertain, inconvenient - yet gallivanting, biting, capable of reinventing itself. And it may even be excessive, but it is disruptive.

For a proposal of Tenderness (not corresponding) that is not a relaxation zone, because it rhymes with the terrible anxiety of explorations, and peripheries!

 

 

To internalise and live the message:

 

On what occasions have you found easy what before seemed impossible? What existential, faith, friendship and missionary effect has contact with the deep emotions of friction and danger had on you?

 

 

 

 

Bread and wonders of the Christ-phantom. And we, the fringe of his cloak

 

(Mk 6:53-56 // Mt 14:34-36)

 

 

He can carry the cloak of the Master who is devoted to the cause of non-violence and non-possession, who is driven by the pursuit of truth and righteousness, who is able to solve his own emotional and intellectual problems, and who can show others the way to overcome their emotional and intellectual problems.

(Acharya Mahaprajna)

 

 

While some are continually crowding around Him and preventing others from having a personal relationship with Jesus, one has to come up with something, at least take Him in stride (v.56).

"And wherever he entered villages or towns or hamlets they placed the sick in the squares and begged him to touch even the fringe of his cloak. And as many as touched him were saved'.

Indeed, the fringe of his cloak is his People - and each one of us, when by Gift we are enabled to perceive and prolong his call, spirit, care, action.

A 'touching' that is not mere gesture: it calls for total involvement; personal faith, digging in.

The crowds around the Lord and the Church, his primary presence, seek bread and healing... but sometimes forget adherence to the inner Person who gives and heals.

Yet even in these cases the infallible Guide re-proposes his unbroken wave of life - with therapies that do not impose themselves by passing through souls as lightning would, but in real existence.

God liberates, saves, creates, from tensions and faults (even religious ones) because he wants to bring us to awareness.

The Father desires to make us penetrate the value of the act of love that makes the weak strong; every re-creating gesture, embodied, open to any sense of emptiness.

 

Annoyances do not happen out of misfortune or chastisement: they come to let us flourish again, precisely out of the pains of the soul.

If they persist, no fear: they become more explicit messages, from our own Higher Seed.

It means that in our orchestra something is out of tune or neglected, and must either fade away or be discovered and brought into play.

Otherwise, we will not be able to grow towards the destiny that characterises a Calling and every discomfort.

The symptoms of unease also belong to the innate quintessence - which always has topical power.

The key will therefore not be looks, nor health, but the very acceptance of bitterness, of hardships, which come to clear away the inessential - and release trapped spiritual drives.

Energies of imbalance, which, however, want to be transformed into the ability to throw off ballast... and to better accommodate and integrate the vocation into one's history, in order to build life again.

 

Perhaps not a few would prefer to wait for a miraculous landing of the Master (typified healer) that brings immediate benefit, immediate favours.

Outward salvation with a magical flavour - caducous, even if physically palpable or even in ethical semblance.

A phenomenal but simplistic Lord.

An Appearance that dies immediately, then we start again - if He (in us, in our turning points) did not involve the same uncertainties that mark us. And the long time of trials, which gradually take on a more intimate weight.

Total and sacred - truly messianic - redemption is little prone to epidermal clamour.

Healing is not scenic. It is only realised step by step; thus it remains profound and radical.

It becomes capable of new beginnings and acts of birth of still embryonic energy, precisely from individual precariousness.

 

Its People - a presence that is no longer ineffable and mysterious - works in proximity, to erase the false image of the philosophical or forensic God, always external. 

Sovereign or imperative engine, distant and absent - touchy - that occasionally points; it does not overcome, nor does it reconfirm. Never looking at our present.

Thus the Church rejects the idea of the ratifying Eternal, but also that of the mass, immediately resolving thaumaturge (so dear to miracle merchants) - a figure that easily takes hold of our fantasies.

 

We announce his authentic Face with words and gestures, precisely to annihilate the idea of the Christ-phantom of the previous passage (v.49), a deplorable and absurd figure.

An apologetic icon only, which unfortunately in history has given ample space to business associates with the Most High.

Being healed does not mean escaping transience.

A saved existence requires a transformation from within; a different beginning. A different grasp of goodness.

 

Jesus traverses our environments as a silent traveller, and also accepts a primitive faith.

But albeit with quiet power, the divine impulse works in every seeker of meaning and every needy person; it establishes itself there personally, precisely from interrupted dreams.

The Lord cannot be imprisoned and contained: he draws near, to initiate great cleansing, to shift our gaze, and to renew the stale universe.Thus he transforms us, in the experience of his gratuitous communion,

a communion that wants to take up residence in us, to merge and dilate the drive to life (perhaps cowering in abstention) so that each one is amazed at himself, at unknown passions, at new relationships.

 

Believer and community manifest in empathic ways the incisive healing power of Faith in the Risen One, starting from one's own intimate life.

We experience him alive in the monotonous, unrewarding and precarious day-to-day life - nevertheless capable of changing the order of existence concealed in sketchy quarters (v.56: "hamlets") and its unexpressed destination.

Without disturbing with special, one-sided or pressing effects.

 

The Tao Tê Ching (xi) writes: "Thirty races unite in one hub, and in its non-being is the usefulness of the chariot".

Elsewhere from the civilisation of appearances is the improvement of our condition and security (from insecurity) - not in a simple, indiscreet and transient getting back on our feet.

Phenomenal, but only punctual and inconclusive, or ultimately abdicating.

 

 

To internalise and live the message:

 

How do you consider Jesus? Miracle-worker or recoverer?

How do you deal with those who are excluded or seem to be without a shepherd?