Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator
St. Mark makes a curious observation at the end of today's Gospel. He says that the apostles had not understood the sign Jesus had worked in the feeding of the multitude, and he attributes their inability to understand to the fact that their hearts were hardened. In Psalm 95, the sacred writer says: Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as on the day of Massah in the desert. There your ancestors tested me; they tried me though they had seen my works. (Psalm 95:8-9) "The day of Massah" refers to the incident in the desert on which occasion the Israelites grumbled against God because they were thirsty and hungry. Just the opposite is true in the Gospel. Jesus had just satisfied their hunger, yet they were still unable to open their hearts to the reality of who God was for them.
In Early Anabaptist Spirituality, Leonhard Schiemer wrote: "The only thing separating us from the love of God is our own recognition of it! If one knew it, that God is the highest of all which is good, it would be impossible not to love God alone above all else. In fact, to know God truly is to love God so dearly that it would be impossible to hold something else dear beside God, even if threatened with eternal punishment! Yes, if I knew God truly, I would experience in my soul and spirit such a pure joy that this joy would surge through my body and make even my body wholly without pain or suffering, immortal and glorified."
It seems clear to me that having a "hardened heart" closes us off from the possibility of accepting God's love for us as well as the possibility of loving God in return. The apostles' hardened hearts kept them from recognizing the "love of God" inherent in the act of feeding the multitude just as it kept the Israelites from recognizing the "love of God" inherent in the act of freeing them from the slavery of Egypt.
Today we read in the First Letter of St. John: God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him. (I John 4:16) Today's Scriptures remind us that the way to overcome the pain and suffering that we experience from our chronic illnesses and/or our disabilities is as simple as remaining open to the love which God offers us and which we can choose to offer back to God.