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The Almighty has prepared for all men, not only necessary and sufficient, but frequent, abundant, and, as far as He is concerned, efficacious graces and helps with which, if they wish to co-operate with them, they can easily gain heaven; therefore he who has the good will to serve God truly has nothing to fear in this respect.—Preached on the sixth Sunday after Pentecost.

Accipiens septem panes, gratias agens, fregit, et dabat discipulis suis, ut apponerent, et apposuerent turbæ.—Mark viii. 6.

“Taking the seven loaves, giving thanks He broke, and gave to His disciples for to set before them, and they set them before the people.”

Pour thousand hungry people who wanted something to eat! What a number to provide for! Good reason had the disciples for exclaiming in astonishment when they considered the great crowd: “From whence can any one fill them here with bread in the wilderness?” Seven loaves and a few fishes, that was the whole provision. And yet the merciful, and at the same time almighty Lord, who did not wish to allow the people to suffer the pangs of hunger or to faint on the way, so increased the scanty supply that there was more than enough to still the hunger of the whole multitude. “They did eat and were filled,” says the Gospel; nay, so much food was there that they could not consume it all. “And they took up that which was left of the fragments, seven baskets.” There, my dear brethren, you have a figure and symbol of the care that the good God, who is so desirous of the salvation of all men, takes of their souls, that nothing may be wanting to them on the way to eternity. Many are called; not four thousand, but many, that is, in this place