who are crying in the middle of the night: it says, "he took pity on them and healed their sick."  Next, they were hungry, and, as if at a family picnic, Jesus says, "Sit down on the grass."    
With only five loaves and two fish to share, we know the story ends with twelve baskets of leftovers!
 
What a great illustration of St. Paul's words, "Nothing can come between us and the love of Christ."  When we see Jesus
meeting even the simplest and most basic needs in the Gospel, we can trust that nothing about our lives today is inconsequential or too small to be covered by Jesus' love.  He has the
biggest things, and the smallest things, firmly in hand.  From "death and taxes" to "our daily bread"-Nothing can come between us and the Love of our lives.
 
Remember: No matter how empty you may feel, Jesus sits down on the grass with you every day, and fills your hunger to the brim.                                                                                           

There is nothing so refreshing in summer as running through the grass in bare feet, is there?  As our buildings get higher, there is something very literally "grounding" about feeling direct contact with the cool earth.
 
Today's Gospel shows how in touch Jesus was -and how deeply he cared-about the most basic realities of
people's lives, such as hunger for the next meal.  It's
always easy to imagine that Jesus was somehow "above it all".  But he was able to be "grounded" in reality only because he truly lived and suffered daily experiences as we do-one day at a time.
 
Even when he was deeply grieving the death of his
beloved cousin, John the Baptist, and was trying to get away for some quiet time with the disciples, his heart went out to the crowd of people who followed him to the "lonely place."  The Gospel reports that Jesus reacted much like a worn-out but loving parent with sick children