When I was younger, my Grandma would often tell us stories about my great-grandmother.

“Nona” as everybody called her — had traveled all the way from Italy across the Atlantic Ocean with 5 kids — and when she got here, she had the responsibility of somehow feeding the entire family with a whopping budget of just one nickel a day.

Just ONE nickel!

Now maybe that’s somewhat of an exaggeration, but suffice to say, money was tight, and they were stretching it REALLY thin.

As my Grandma used to tell us, whenever Nona cooked dinner with the meager groceries she managed to buy with just a “nickel” a day — she would always pray over the meal, saying these words: 

“Creesh creesh”

Now, I did a little bit of research, and I think it must come from this Italian command:

“Cresci, cresci” — which means: “Grow! Grow!”

Nona was praying over that food with a word of command: 

Multiply!

INCREASE! …GROW!

Let this be enough for my family to EAT!

“Creesh creesh.”

And somehow, after praying that little prayer, Nona was always able to feed her family. There was always — by God’s grace — “more than enough.”

That’s the theme I’d like to explore today and over the next four Sundays:

This theme of “More than enough.”

For the next month — over the next 5 consecutive Sundays — the entire Church will make its way through John Chapter 6. This is the famous “Bread of Life” discourse, and it’s where we get a substantial amount of Scriptural support for what the Church has always believed about the Most Holy Eucharist from the very beginning.

The Bread of Life discourse kicks off with the story we just heard: 

A large crowd had been following Jesus around because of the miraculous signs he was performing on the sick. They’d been there for a long time, and now they were getting REALLY hungry… 

This is important! Before we ever get to the people’s deeper, spiritual needs — we first need to address the reality that this crowd of people has a basic, physical need to EAT food.

So Jesus turns to Philip — one of his apostles — and asks him a question as a sort of test:

“Hey Philip, where do you think we can buy enough food for them to eat?”

Philip responds very reasonably — he responds according to the NATURAL, WORLDLY resources readily available to them…

“Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.”

They only had a nickel or two to spend! How were they going to feed this ENTIRE group of people? His response could have been summed up:

“LORD, I’M SORRY, BUT WE DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH.”

Andrew then pipes in: “There’s a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?” 

Again, we could paraphrase Andrew’s thoughts this way:

“Lord, we have a little bit of food to share… BUT THERE’S NO WAY IT’S GONNA BE ENOUGH.”

This entire scene was foreshadowed in our first reading from the second book of Kings, where we heard a very similar story from the life of the prophet Elisha… A hundred people were gathered at that time, and the prophet commanded his servant to feed them with just 20 loaves of bread.

Again, the servant scoffs: “How can I set THIS before a hundred people?”

THIS ISN’T ENOUGH, ELISHA! — We’re going to run out!!! It’s gonna be a disaster! It’s gonna be embarrassing! There’s NO WAY this is gonna work…

And yet both Elisha and Jesus respond clearly, calmly, and firmly: “Just do it. Just trust.”

“Creesh creesh.”

And then sure enough, there’s MORE than enough!!!

But let’s all pause and consider this:

Isn’t the response of Philip and Andrew pretty familiar to us? Isn’t that how WE usually respond most of the time? — “Lord, I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH… WE DON’T HAVE ENOUGH. THIS ISN’T GONNA WORK.”

More often than not, we view our personal circumstances, the world…and even the Church — through the lens of SCARCITY.

There isn’t enough money.

There isn’t enough time.

I don’t have enough stuff…

I don’t have enough vacation days…

There’s not enough energy…

Not enough motivation.

Not enough volunteers.

Not enough votes…

Here’s one that I’ve been guilty of complaining about at times:

There aren’t enough priests getting ordained…

Now maybe it’s true — maybe we really don’t have “enough” of whatever we want to fill in that blank… After all, five loaves really ISN’T enough to feed over 5,000 hungry mouths — but the question then becomes this:

Why are we so fixated on what we DON’T have? Why do we always think in terms of SCARCITY?

Evidently, that’s not how Jesus thinks!

Let me ask you this: Do you think Jesus watched anxiously as more and more people streamed into that patch of grass that day? Was his heart filled with dread and fear — “Oh my goodness! Where will we ever find enough food for all these people?”

Was Jesus afraid of failure? Was he fixated on what they DID NOT have?

No.  …He wasn’t!

Because He understood quite clearly that in Heaven, there is no such thing as “not enough.” He knew that in Heaven, there’s plenty for everyone… that there’s always more — always MORE than enough to go around. “A good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap.”

Jesus was sent in order to unite Heaven and Earth together. He brings a supernatural, Heavenly perspective to every situation He finds Himself in. “Thy will be done on EARTH as it is in HEAVEN…” 

And so he turns to his disciples, who were still so filled with worldly doubt — who were still deathly afraid of coming up short, and he says:

“Have the people recline for a meal!”

Thankfully, the apostles were just crazy enough to go along with him to see what actually would happen…

Then Jesus takes the loaves and fishes, he looks up to heaven, and gives thanks…Before the miracle even happens, He thanks His Father!!! 

This is really important:

Jesus gives thanks for the little that He DOES have — He gives thanks for the NOT ENOUGH-ness… and then He gives it away! 

When there simply ISN’T ENOUGH to go around… Jesus gives thanks. He expresses gratitude. And then He gives it away… He offers it all!

He doesn’t hold on to the five loaves and two fish in fear — No!

He lifts His eyes to Heaven and says:

“Creesh, creesh” — Grow! Multiply! Increase!!!!

…And then, there is a superabundance of what the people needed. 

“All had their fill.” In fact, we read that the five loaves and two fish “had been more than they could eat.”

…More than enough!

Miracles like this have happened at other times throughout Church history as well! There are several stories from the lives of the saints that demonstrate that our God is NOT a God of scarcity but rather — He is the God of Providence — the God of MORE THAN ENOUGH.

One time in the life of St. John Vianney, they ran out of flour to bake bread for all the young girls at the school he had established in the little town of Ars, France. In desperation, the saint brought a few sacred relics and placed them under the last few grains of flour. Later, when he returned to the storeroom, it was miraculously FILLED with more than enough grain.

Creesh, creesh!

Another time, while out begging for food, St. Dominic’s friars got only a single loaf of bread for their entire community. But before they made it back to the monastery, they encountered a poor man who was even worse off than they were… so they decided to give this poor man their one loaf of bread. So they returned to the monastery, empty-handed after a whole days worth of begging. 

Nevertheless, St Dominic ordered them to set the table for dinner, and all the friars sat down to pray grace over their empty plates. Just then, the monastery doors suddenly flew open, and two beautiful men appeared, holding two loaves of bread that miraculously fed the entire community.

Creesh, creesh!

It doesn’t always need to happen with food either!

There’s a famous story from the life of Mother Angelica, the foundress of EWTN, where she needed a $1.5 million satellite to help jumpstart her new Catholic TV station. The only problem was she only had $200 in the bank.

So naturally… she went ahead and ordered that $1.5 million satellite…

When the delivery man for the satellite arrived, she needed to pay $600,000 delivery downpayment. After stalling a bit, Mother asked if she could go pray, and that she would be right back.

Apparently this was her prayer: “I thought you wanted this satellite, Lord, and I wheeled and dealed and I got it for You and now I’m having a little problem: We need this money or I’m going to have to turn Your satellite away.”

As she walked out of the chapel, one of the sisters came running up to her saying: “Mother, there’s a man on the phone and he is very insistent — he needs to talk to you right now!”

As the story goes, she took the call, and lo and behold — the man told her that one of her books had transformed his life and helped him reconcile with his family. He said he wanted to make a special donation… a donation of exactly $600,000.

Afterwards, Mother Angelica reflected on this story saying: “Unless you are willing to do the ridiculous, God will not do the miraculous.”

All this is to say: Our God is a God of miraculous Providence!

But please don’t get me wrong — I’m not preaching a prosperity gospel!That’s not what the Catholic Church preaches.

But what we DO preach is a loving God who absolutely gives us what we need, when we need it, and how we really need it. 

He is the God of MORE than enough!

What we need to do, however, is resist that worldly fear — that fear of coming up short!  We need to give thanks for the little we DO have, offer it freely… and then watch to see what the Lord does!

We need to get to the point where we are willing to do the ridiculous — to serve 5,000 people with just 5 loaves and 2 fish …with just my Nona’s bold little prayer in our heart:

“Creesh, creesh.” — Grow! Increase! Multiply!

Ya know, I’ve heard that in this part of the state of Virginia, only about 2% of the population is Catholic. Now, we could very easily use that as an excuse, saying: “Lord, there’s not enough of us to make any real difference! What good is 2%???”

What we have to offer might not seem like much to the world, either: As St. Paul put it in our second reading: “There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all”

Only one? — We offer the world only One Eucharist?

Only One Bread… One Cup? 

Only one man died on a Cross, and that somehow saved everybody? 

“What good is that for so many?” some might say…

“Creesh creesh.”

Jesus miraculously multiplies Himself…. on every altar… in every Tabernacle…in every believing heart throughout the world. 

All are invited to come and have their fill. 

Jesus… is MORE than enough.