In Your Hands
Ordinary 17
July 30, 2006

In Your Hands
by Tom Cox

We all find ourselves at times in situations where we don't know what to say. Dominican author Timothy Radcliffe in his latest book recounts such a time. Rwanda, 1994 at the height of the genocide and Radcliffe found himself in the company of two friars, one Hutu and the other Tutsi. They were looking for members of the order and their families in refugee camps around the country, as Hutu's and Tutsi's exacted savage losses on each other. Every evening the church gave them something to do, what Jesus himself did the night before he died. They celebrated Eucharist.

Nothing needed to be made up, they were given a ritual, a format with which to face the moment, and it was powerful because it was given and not invented.

At times we feel that we have so little, life has drained us of spirit. We are like the little boy with the five loaves and the two fish. Could he have imagined how much good his small contribution would make in Jesus' hands? The need to feed is a primal instinct, we share with all creatures. As we begin today for several Sundays to unpack the meaning of Eucharist for the Christian community, a time to see what are my "five loaves and two fish" and into whose hands we are entrusting them.

(Comments to Tom at tomascox@eircom.net )