The simple and staggering message of today's Scripture readings is nothing less than the sweeping and profound proclamation of all of Scripture in an unusually concentrated form: God loves his people - regardless. He nourishes his people, and provides for them, and welcomes them, and abides with them, and sustains them, and longs for them, and embraces them, and forgives them, and loves them - regardless. Nothing can change that faithful, constant affection proved by Scripture and proclaimed by the holy Church. Nothing.

Ezra, in that First Lesson from Nehemiah, reminds God's people that, despite the peoples' mutterings and complaints and infidelities and harlotries, even blasphemies, God has not abandoned them, nor forsaken them. Ezra recalls aloud that the people "acted presumptuously, stiffened their necks, did not obey God's commandments, refused to obey, were not mindful of the wonders, sought to return to slavery, made themselves a molten calf and called it God Almighty." God for his part, in response to this, "did not forsake them, led them in the way by which they should go, gave his Spirit to instruct them, gave them manna to eat and water for their thirst."

The Israelites were deeply historical about their religion, and so Ezra really contents himself with just reminding the people that God, despite all, did not abandon them in their past. Regardless.

St Paul, in the Epistle, goes far beyond this. He is convinced, he is certain, he is sure that nothing has, nothing will, nothing can, cause God to abandon us - nothing - "not height, nor depth, nor things present, nor things to come", not anything in all creation, can separate us from the love of God.

Ezra leaves us with the reassurance that God has not abandoned us, despite all that we have done. St Paul gives us the promise that God will not abandon us, no matter what we might do, no matter what might be done to us, no matter what might happen - no matter what.

In the Gospel, we hear that the disciples of Jesus, after the People of God had been taught, and healed, and touched by grace, then sought to send them away. They were blocked by our Lord: "They need not go away." Nothing, not the peoples' sins, not the accidents of the universe, not the inner circle's intentions, would prevail to separate the people from the abounding, steadfast love of God.

So many of us have been through so many troubles and sorrows that may be cautious, unconvinced, about assurances that absolutely nothing will, or can, change, alter, or abolish the affection, the care, God has for us. It may take a leap of faith, to accept the reality, the truth, that God is faithful, and his love does not change or disappear. He will not go away, he will not forsake us, he will not abandon us, and no one, and nothing, can come along that will or can threaten our place in his heart, endanger that abounding, steadfast love of his

Our history and our faith as the People of God affirms this truth. But our own personal experience may seem to contradict it. There is, the Bible and the Church insist, no separation, no abandonment, not even the remotest possibility of it. But there is, say our lives from time to time, certainly the appearance of it. Yes, we may well have a feeling that we have been forsaken, a suspicion that we have been abandoned, a worry that we are separated.

Each of the three lessons offers its own explanation for this ... very real, very strong ... feeling. St Paul notes that we may be so battered by events, by "hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword", that we may risk feeling a separation so keen that wonder about God's care. Is it really still there?

He immediately reminds us that catastrophes will happen, but catastrophes will not prevail. God will prevail.

Ezra suggests that we may be so distracted by our own guilt for all we have done wrong in our lives that we may well develop the fear and worry that we so ought to be cast off by the true God, that we assume we are, certain we have separated ourselves from the love of God. We may then begin to experiment with all new age molten calves we can come up with or hear about, and then very soon we so rightly embarrassed by our foolishness, that we tend to assume that God is as ashamed of us as we are ourselves. Ezra reminds us that there is always power surpassing the power of our foul-ups and our shame. And that is the power of the love of God - steadfast and abounding.

The Gospel suggests a third source for a pervading sense of desolate separation - not the tragedies of life we suffer, or the result of sins we commit. The sense of separation may arise simply from our being just too unimpressed with it all. Unimpressed with the wonder and the mystery and the awe of the miracle of God's tender love for us. So often the Gospel writers note the amazement, the surprise, the rank fear that ordinary men and women feel when they experience the undeniable activity of God in their actual lives. "What then is this, a new teaching?" "Who is this, that even the winds and the waves obey him?" "And all were in wonder at the power of God." "And fear and trembling seized them all." "And they begged him to leave their district, for they were afraid." But not so with those Five Thousand. The Gospel does not record that they were in any way especially unsettled by the miracle in their midst, by the majesty of God's movement in their lives. One bare neutral on their reaction: "and all ate … and were filled".

Uh oh, how true: the provision of the simple necessities of life, modestly distributed in response to our human need, does not have the flash of rebuking wind and sea, or calming the crazed, or raising the Dead.

In these lives of ours, touched as they always are by the grace and glory of God, we are surrounded on every side by so many unremarkable miracles, that we let them slip by almost unnoticed, probably looking for, waiting for, expecting, something grander, showier. And all the while, that daily demonstration of God's abounding and steadfast love, and his faithful and constant provision for his people, and his abiding, nurturing presence, may go unnoticed and unknown: the miracle of the Mass, the miracle of a gathered community of faith, the mystery of life and the awesome wonder of human love, all of the good and happy and wonderful things in our lives can be so taken for granted, or credit given to chance or coincidence, or general good luck.

When we are touched by love, comforted in sorrow, surrounded by compassion, sustained in our confusion, accepted despite our foolishness, forgiven for our meanness, we have the undeniable proof of God's love for his People - abounding and steadfast. There can be no separation on account of the bad things we suffer. There can be no separation on account of the wrong actions we take. Casual, unimpressed, easy-going nonchalance about all of this, this … miracle in our midst, now that seems to be the one mortal danger.