Part of the learning curve for the Apostles of Christ was learning that the word dismissal was not part of Jesus’ ministry, at least not when crowds are hungry for him. It’s true the Lord will dismiss his own disciples in the sense of heading off to the mountain for some solitary prayer. Or, dismiss a small crowd inside a certain house so he could raise a 12-year old girl from death. But generally speaking, and in the larger picture, Jesus dismissing a large or small crowd simply does not reconcile with his public ministry of establishing God’s Kingdom on earth. On the contrary, I bet all of us are adept at dismissing certain people at certain times. And if we cannot dismiss them easily, we may give a hint like, “Can’t you hear your bed calling you at home?” Or, you simply stretch out your hands like Jesus on the Cross, let out a loud yawn, and say, “Boy, I’m tired!” This sort of dismissal, which the Disciples tell Jesus to perform to the crowd following him, is never found in the actions and language of heaven. Or heaven on earth. Even when it seems his back is against the wall, thousands of men, women, and children with no food following him to a deserted place, the thought of dismissal remains far from the mind of the Son of God. We know the story; they are told to sit down, take it easy and relax for a short time, and be fed to complete satisfaction. “All you who are thirsty, come to the water! You’re not dismissed. Come to the water. You who have no money, and even you who do have money, come receive grain and eat. Come to the table of the Lord where there is no cost to be fed.” Now, the simple, yet fundamental point for today is this; in the lack of Jesus dismissing the crowds, was that closeness and proximity to him only during the time of his public ministry? When the Lord accomplishes all he set out to do, when his hour had arrived, when he gave his life for ours, and when he flew off from the mountain on the bungee cord that only goes up, ascending to his glory, did dismissal now become part of God’s language, when he was no longer with them in the flesh? Isn’t it one of the harder parts of our relationship with Christ to – at times – accept and believe he has not dismissed us from his abiding presence? We have even in our time the great St. Teresa of Calcutta living for decades what is spiritually called “a dark night of the soul.” Which simply means to a disciple, “God has dismissed me. While I remain faithful, and I don’t turn my back on him by not turning my back on my brothers and sisters, while I sustain a daily prayer life and plead for his intercession for this person and that person, my experience is, ‘Lord, where did you go? Did you dismiss me, tell me to go back to my own village and buy food for myself?’” This sense of separation from our Creator and Savior, where he apparently tells us to leave his presence and go home is the darkest part of our relationship with the Lord. And all of us at one time or another have come to know firsthand that experience of apparent Divine dismissal. But, if nothing else, Jesus is consistent. The action taken toward the overwhelming crowd following him and the challenge to feed them, spiritually and physically, is a continuous action until the day we stand before him. At times along the way, we need to battle against moments of seeming darkness, the darkness of God seeming to dismiss us. And the three best ways – the top 3 list – to battle against the appearance of Jesus dismissing us are: 1) Reception of the Eucharist, 2) Read and hear the word of God, and 3) Sustain a daily prayer life. These are not magical answers on how to avoid the dark night of the soul. They are not magical answers, period. They are real parts of our Catholic lives, choices that we make, in order to not experience something that God will never do to us. Dismiss the crowds? No way! Feed them yourselves, because dismissal is language unknown in heaven, and unknown on earth in the language of Christ. Instead, we have “I will be with you until the end of the age.” And in an age of pandemic and greater violence, we need to trust even more in Jesus’ real presence among us.