The story about Jesus’s multiplication of the loaves and fish in today’s gospel, seems like a very simple story on the surface of things. Our Catholic faith is a lot like that too. The Catholic faith is simple enough for even little children to understand, and yet, it is so complex that even the most intelligent theologians in the history of mankind has not been able to understand all there is to know about our faith. But, that’s ok, because our Catholic faith is meant to be for everyone, from all walks of life. The young, the old, the rich, the poor, the educated or uneducated, everyone is welcome and has a place in the Catholic church.
This is exactly what Jesus demonstrates in today’s gospel too. He looked at the crowds who came to see him … with compassion. They were tired and hungry and had traveled a long way just to see Him. He welcomed them all, and healed their sick. It did not matter to Jesus why the crowds were there, He simply loved them – without regard to their religious background, station in life, or the sins they had committed. Even their lack of understanding of who He really was, and the reason why He was there, didn’t matter to Jesus. Their understanding would come later. He simply loved them … right where they were in that moment.
Jesus looked with compassion on the crowd because no one thought to bring any food with them. They climbed a mountain to see him, and they must have been famished by the time they finally reached him.
Jesus decided to feed the crowds Himself. You probably realize that Jesus already knew what he was going to do, when he asked Philip where they could buy some bread for the crowd to eat? Philip answered Jesus that they only had five loaves of bread and two fish, which wasn’t even enough for each one of them to have a little bite to eat.
The same story in the gospel of John mentions that it was actually a little boy in the group that had the five barley loaves and two fish. He brought his bread and fish and gave them to Jesus. Jesus took that small gift of five loaves of bread and two fish and he multiplied it by five thousand. Sometimes Jesus can do the same with us too. We bring to Jesus the small gifts, talents and abilities that we have and He makes our gifts grow, if we cooperate with the graces that He sends us. When Jesus does this though, the increase in our gifts are not meant just for our own benefit. Our gifts were given to us, to be shared with others too.
Before Jesus performed this miracle on such a grand scale though, He did a very simple thing. He thanked His Father first. This is an important lesson for all of us, because Jesus recognized that all good gifts come from our Heavenly Father. Even Jesus knew that He did not perform any miracle on His own, but only through the power that God had given to Him.
Jesus gave five thousand people bread to eat from the five barley loaves. He demonstrated his great love for mankind by feeding the multitudes while He was alive, and then providing for all of us after He died, by breaking bread with his disciples and asking them to “do this in memory of me”. This is a precursor to the Eucharist and the Mass itself. In modern times, the body of Christ is still broken and given to the multitudes during the Mass too.
The crowd of five thousand people realized Jesus was the Messiah though, after they saw the twelve baskets of scraps of food that was left after everyone had eaten their fill. After this event occurred they tried to make Jesus their king. But, of course Jesus withdrew from them because his Kingdom was not of this earth.
Our true home is not of this earth either. Our final destination is with Jesus. We are travelers on this journey together toward our Father’s Kingdom. The Eucharist is what binds us together as His people. Let us try to be good to each other while we journey through life together, and share what we have with one another, just like the little boy, who shared his bread and his fish with everyone. His small gift of fish and bread ended up making a big difference to five thousand people that day, and his memory lives on throughout the ages because of how Jesus used his small gift.
A good thought for the day might be to ask ourselves if we have a small gift, talent or ability, that we have never used to serve others? How could our gifts, talents and abilities be put to good use for our parish family or the larger community that we live in?
