The first reading for mass today is about love. Saint John says, “let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.” The entire reading is about God’s love for us and our love for God, and for one another. In fact, it has been said that the entire bible can be summed up in one word, “love”.
But, what is love? There are so many different kinds of love that it is hard to define it. We love our spouses, children, family, friends and even our pets. There are as many different kinds of love as there are people, because we love each person in a completely different way from any other person. Our love for each individual person in our lives is as unique and different as their fingerprints. We are loved by God in this same way. He loves each of us individually and collectively as well.
But still, what is a good definition of love? How can we explain what genuine love is? There are so many different types of love, like platonic love, agape love, romantic love, maternal love, brotherly love, etc. Everyone knows people who sin due to a misguided sense of love. So, what is the definition of love?
The gospel today has the answer. The disciples come to Jesus, concerned for the crowd’s well being. It was late and they were hungry. The disciples asked Jesus to dismiss the crowd so they could go to the surrounding villages and farms and buy something to eat. The disciples actually demonstrated what genuine love is, in today’s gospel when they went to Christ with their concerns for the people.
Genuine love is to desire the ultimate good of another person.
This is a very simple definition of love. It isn’t complicated. This is how God loves us and this is how we are to love others, by desiring what is good for them. Love is genuine when it is concerned about the needs of another person (s). This is especially true in marriages, but applies to all relationships in our lives as well.
It seems a little strange that when the disciples asked Jesus to let the people go so they could go buy something to eat, he told them, “Give them some food yourselves”. Surely he must have known they didn’t have enough food to feed the whole crowd? They told him that it would cost 200 days wages to feed a crowd that size, it was out of their means to do so. Of course Jesus already knew this, but he told them to go and see how many loaves of bread they had.
The disciples brought back five loaves and two fish. It was only a little bit of food, but they brought what they had and Jesus did the rest. This is an awesome thing to remember. Jesus has the power to do things that we can not. We do what we can and he can help us do the rest.
Jesus fed five thousand men with five loaves and two fish and everyone had plenty to eat and there was 12 baskets of left overs too.
Many people view today’s gospel reading as a precursor to the Eucharist, because Christ broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, who in turn gave it the five thousand men to eat. This is just like what happens at mass when the priest stands in persona of Christ, breaks the bread, gives it to the Eucharistic ministers, who in turn give it to the people to eat.
Christ performed a miracle in multiplying five loaves of bread to feed five thousand people and he performs a miracle at every mass too, when the bread is transformed into his body. Jesus called himself the bread of life, and so he is.
Today’s gospel may indeed be the precursor to the Eucharist. Christ may have wanted to show his disciples what mass would be like, when he would literally, feed his people – himself. However, Jesus may have also simply wanted to feed the people because they were hungry. Either way, or both ways, love reigns.
Genuine love always desires the good of another. Jesus and his disciples fed the people because they were hungry. Christ and his disciples still do every week at mass. Love reigns at every mass. Christ’s love for us is eternal. He has never stopped loving us and he never will. He always wants what is good for us and is personally concerned about our well being.
Jesus Christ is Love Incarnate.
