Welcome to the Church of the Nativity family. Since its dedication on October 21, 1989, our community has faithfully committed to our mission: We are a praying, learning and caring community fulfilling the mission God gives us in baptism by our worship in faith, by our witness in hope, and by our service in love. We invite you to journey with our community in Christ, thus will be said, “Day by Day the Lord added to their number” (Acts 2:47). Our Nativity School is led by faith-filled, loving professional staff who provide not only excellence in academics for our children so that they may excel in life, but help cultivate and form our children to come to know, love and serve God through the gifts God has blessed each of them. We are a Dynamic Parish and look forward to walking with you and your family to pray, worship, and give thanks to God for the many blessings He has bestowed upon us. In joy and in sorrow, we will live out together the witness of faith, hope and charity. At the Church of the Nativity, there will always be room “in the inn” (Luke 2,7).
In the past two Sunday we have shared our reflections in the meaning of Christian missions, namely, that the sender of the mission of Jesus Christ himself, the message of the mission is the proclamation of the gospel that the reign of God is at hand, the spirit of the missionaries is that of poverty so that they would always depend on God’s grace and the cooperation of the people to whom they are sent and finally the consequences of accepting or rejecting the missions. Last Sunday we shared how Jesus received the apostles, the first missionaries, back to his fold, listening to their experiences and sending off to recreated and refresh themselves in desert so that they could be able to proclaim further the mission of Jesus himself. The readings of the past two Sunday were truly very meaningful and significant in our own lives as disciples of Jesus who would aspire to follow Him more closely.
Today gospel reading speaks about the foreshadowing of the greatest miracle that Jesus left for us to always consider. The multiplication of the bread that fed thousands of people who “followed him, because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick,” points to the Sacrament of the Eucharist that he eventually instituted on the night of his betrayal when he also instituted the sacrament of the orders. Looking into the miracle of the multiplication of the bread we can already see certain elements of Christian ministry itself. These elements I would like to share with you today. The first among them is the presence of the multitude of people who seek for spiritual and physical healing, material satisfaction, psychological fulfillment and others. The second element of ministry is the objective of the minister himself. Ministry is always for the welfare of the people who seek what would be giving them the fullness of their personal aspiration. Ministry is never a self-service unto the satisfaction of the minister himself. Jesus did not multiply the loaves so that the people would make him their king for in fact when the people want to be proclaimed as the prophet among them, “he withdrew again to the mountain alone.” The third element that I see in this gospel passage is the value that Jesus gave to little or insignificant things. “When they had their fill, he said to his disciples, ‘Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.” In serving people everything matters, both small and big. Jesus wants us to always consider everything and everyone important to be in life.
The readings this Sunday allow us to ponder further and more deeply the paternal concern of Jesus for all of us. He left behind the Eucharist not only as a memorial of his saving mysteries, but as an occasion for us to minister to each other in a Christian way. This means that we should never serve in order to make ourselves known or honored nor so that we would be compensated in any way. Our service and ministry should always be in view of the common good, if not the welfare of the whole community, especially those who are most in need, the poor, the oppressed, the immigrant, the less fortunate, those who live in the peripheries in life. The spirit of service should always include the consideration of the value of all things, no matter how big or small because for Jesus nothing should go into waste.
In a world that has become so secular, selfish and material, we truly need ministers who would remain faithful to the ministry that Jesus showed during his lifetime. There may be ordained ministries, but Christian life itself is a ministry within our own families, our community, our neighborhood and the whole wide world. Let us pray that our ministry would mirror the ministry of Jesus, selfless, other centered and concerned about the value of everything.