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Dear Parish Family,
The common theme of today’s readings is the provident care of a loving and merciful God who generously shares His riches with us and invites us to practice His sharing love in our lives. After announcing the return of God’s chosen people to their homeland from Babylonian captivity, the prophet Isaiah, in today’s first reading, concludes his prophecies with God’s invitation to the eschatological banquet. The grace of God is compared to freely given food and drink. Yahweh’s gracious invitation in the first reading is echoed in the Responsorial Psalm (Ps 145), which reminds us, “The eyes of all look hopefully to You, and You give them their food in due season; You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.” In the second reading, Paul argues that since God loves us, “nothing can come between us and the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Today’s Gospel describes how Jesus demonstrates the provident care of God the Father by miraculously feeding a multitude of people in a remote, desolate village called Bethsaida Julius, where the River Jordan flows into the north end of the Sea of Galilee. The miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 is found in all four Gospels, although the context and emphasis varies. Told no less than six times in the four Gospels, the event of the loaves and fish is the only miracle so emphasized. This is the only miracle, other than the Resurrection, that is told in all four Gospels, a fact that speaks of its importance to the early Church. [Compare Mark 6:35-44, Luke 9:12-17, and John 6:1-14].
The miraculous feeding narrative expresses the conviction that, through Jesus, we share in God’s own abundance and in the promises made to God’s covenant people. Matthew says that there were about 5,000 men, not including women and children. According to some commentators, this means that there could have been as many as 20,000-30,000 people present. The miracle suggests the Old Testament story of the people of Israel being fed with manna in the wilderness, as well as that of the multiplying of oil and bread by Elisha. The story should be treated as a witness to the power of God and an implicit declaration of Jesus’ Divinity. In the Synoptic accounts, the story also shows Christ empowering the disciples, to whom He gives the loaves and fish to distribute to the crowd, to continue his works of compassion. We may regard the incident both as a miracle of Divine providence and as a Messianic sign in which Jesus multiplied loaves and fish in order to feed his hungry listeners.
The lesson for every Christian is that, no matter how impossible our assignment may seem, with Divine help it can be done because “nothing is impossible with God” (Luke 1:37). The twelve baskets clearly represent the twelve tribes of Israel as well as the twelve apostles who are part of the New Israel. They will become the twelve sources transmitting God’s generous comfort and aid to His people. It is our turn now, wherever we find ourselves, we can be His witnesses.
Fr. Tom Kunnel C.O.