But is it True?
"They said, 'We have no more than five loaves and two fish--unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.' For there were about five thousand... And taking the five loaves and two fish, Jesus looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. And all ate and were filled." Luke 9: 10-17
Saint Patrick was captured from his home in Britain as a teenager, and taken to Ireland where he worked the fields in slavery for six long years. During his captivity he grew close to God and heard a mysterious voice telling him that a ship had come to take him home. He escaped to a port 200 miles away, where a ship did indeed return him to his family.
Back at home, in a vision, he heard another voice call to him, "We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us." After that he returned to Ireland, the place of his captivity, as a Christian missionary.
He built the church in that beautiful land and the rest is history.
It's an amazing story, but is it true?
In today's reaqding, 5,000 people wanted to eat, but they only had a few loaves and fishes among them. By the time Jesus had them share, everybody ate their fill
It's an amazing story, but is it true?
One theory about St. Patrick claims that the lives of two men were melded to form the legend of the one. One theory explains that the miracle of the loaves and the fishes is a result of the unexpected generosity of a crowd of people who had extra food in their pockets.
In a culture that tediously hunts for proof, I seek for mystery and beauty, where a chunk of land in the sea can become instead an emerald isle.
May the peace of Christ, which passes all human understanding, fill me with a holy imagination. Amen.
Lillian Daniel is Senior Minister, First Congregational Church, UCC, Glen Ellyn, Illinois.
To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time.
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