Today's Gospel reading (Mt 14: 13-21) is one of the most familiar of the Gospel stories-- the feeding of the five thousand. We all know the basic outline-- there is a huge crowd that had assembled to see Jesus in a deserted place, and the disciples suggest to Jesus that the crowd be sent on their way so they can find some food. Jesus has a different idea. He tells the disciples to feed the crowd themselves. They protest that they only have five loaves and two fish, hardly anything compared to the size of the crowd, but Jesus has them bring what little they have, blesses it, and gives it to the disciples for distribution. The result is that the whole crowd is fed, with 12 baskets of left-overs. A great miracle, certainly. But did you ever wonder why Jesus went through the exercise of having the disciples bring what little they had? Jesus didn't need any "starter fluid" to get the miracle going. He could certainly have created fish and loaves for the crowd without the loaves and fish the disciples brought. But for some reason Jesus insists that the disciples bring forward their tiny amount of food, which then becomes part of the miracle. In fact, if you think about it, Jesus seems always to have some involvement by others, often His disciples, when He works miracles. People bring sick people to Jesus to be healed-- He doesn't just show up in a town and everyone there is healed. One time a group of men even lowered a person who was paralyzed through a hole in a roof so they could get him to Jesus to be healed. Even now, the greatest miracle in the Church-- the Eucharist-- happens with the involvement of human beings. Jesus doesn't just automatically show up in the form of bread and wine on the altar at Mass-- - the prayers of the priest are also involved. So why the role of us mere mortals in Jesus' miracles? Maybe it is because God wants us involved in building His Kingdom-- workers, not just observers. That's part of how we love God, and if God were the only participant in the event, what role would there be for us? In addition, if God were simply to act, time and again without our involvement, what choice would we have in deciding whether or not to love God? Our free will would have been rendered irrelevant. Jesus wanted His disciples involved in His miracles back when He was on earth in human form, and He still wants us involved now. Where can you play a role-- maybe a tiny one, but a role nevertheless, in one of Jesus' miracles?