One of the brothers, our Dominican province's director of development, recently told us that, as he asks people to contribute to our "Lighting the Way" campaign to pay for our new philosophy and theology school in Berkeley, he prays to St. Andrew. Andrew, of course, is the one who apparently had the misfortune of having to ask that poor little boy to give up his bread and fish so Jesus could feed the thousands.

Then again, Andrew was giving this boy a grand opportunity: he participates in Jesus' great sign of God's power and abundance. Jesus gave Andrew the opportunity to participate as well, by doing the asking. And the boy and Andrew are both famous for it.

Andrew is the one who gave his brother Simon Peter the opportunity to follow Jesus. After spending the day with Jesus, the first thing Andrew did was find his brother and tell him that they found the Messiah.

This is our calling, too -- to give others the opportunity to follow Jesus. How can they follow unless they are asked?

Our director of development told us about Andrew because he and our provincial are encouraging us once again -- giving us the opportunity -- to invite people to support our new school. And we have so many other ministries to invite people to participate in through donations, prayers, and other means.

In fact, we are currently inviting people to support our Mud Puddle Films ministry that I currently direct, to help make our next movie happen. I suppose I should dare to ask, to invite: we've got $25,000 and need only $5,000 more. Perhaps you'll feel called to contribute to this ministry, our new school, or one of our many other important ministries.

Meanwhile, here we are at the eucharist, where we contribute what little we have, where we simpy -- but fully and lavishly -- give ourselves, and Jesus feeds us with his very self, the love of God.