Giving In Abundance Always

When Jesus heard the news of his cousin, John the Baptist's brutal death, it was the final straw, it seemed, in a bad week. He had been rejected by the people of Nazareth and had to leave to save his skin.  To ease his sorrow, he sought a place of solitude so he could regain his focus on his Father and his mission,   But that was not to be; the crowds found him; they were hungry for his teaching and healing, and to boot, were also hungry for food, so he fed them.  The numbers are astounding:  5 loaves, two fishes, 12 baskets of fragmented left-overs and 5,000 men (not counting women and children) fed.  Is there no limit to the goodness of Jesus, of his abundant giving?  No, certainly not.
It is this image, and fact about Jesus that should spur us on when we think people are asking too much of us and we feel the need for a break. When it doesn't come, or is interrupted, it's time to pray over Jesus and the 5,000, or to St. Cajetan, whose Memorial is today.  He was a lawyer turned priest, a reformer, a founder of a hospital for the incurable and the founder of a group of fellow priests who worked to reform a corrupt clergy and church. Like Jesus, he gave entirely of himself for others, and when dying asked to be placed on a bed of planks because Jesus died on the wood of the cross.
When we feel tired, spent or in a "poor me" mode, these examples might give us to give limitlessly and in abundance.
Bro. Rene