Gospel according to Saint John 6,1-15:
Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee. A large crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. The Jewish feast of Passover was near. When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowd was coming to him, he said to Philip, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?” He said this to test him, because he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?”
Jesus said, “Have the people recline.” Now there was a great deal of grass in that place. So the men reclined, about five thousand in number. Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were reclining, and also as much of the fish as they wanted. When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, “Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.” So they collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat.
When the people saw the sign he had done, they said, “This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.” Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain alone.
A Eucharistic miracle
Luis CASASUS President of the Idente Missionaries
Rome, July 28, 2024 | XVII Sunday in Ordinary Time
2Kgs 4: 42-44; Eph 4: 1-6; Jn 6: 1-15
Each of us has a different Dominant Defect. You do not have to be an expert in anything to understand it. But attachment to judgments and attachment to desires are even more fundamental and universal than any of our defects. Today’s Gospel shows us to what extent they are rooted in our ego. In spite of Christ’s best efforts by word and deed to make visible the kingdom of heaven, those who listened to him were determined to see in him a future king who would free them from imposed political power and obtain for them the food necessary for their bodies.
This is not simply a curious fact of our psyche, but the consequences have a spiritual scope: The Gospel text tells us that, knowing that Jesus would come to take him away to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain, alone. That is to say, it was not possible for him to perform the miracles he would have wished in the hearts of that multitude, that is why what Christ announced to us becomes true and provocative: You will do greater things than I will do (Jn 14: 12).
In spite of the lack of vision of the crowd that surrounded Christ, his compassion did not let them go. They came from all strata of society: the lame and the poor, the blind, surely also well-to-do people who were looking for meaning in life, men, women and children, each one with their personal needs and concerns. They came impressed by the miracles Jesus performed, thinking that he could really help them. They wanted more, it was a hungry crowd, physically and spiritually, but, as expected, many were focused only on their material needs. Five thousand men, not counting women and children, possibly more than fifteen thousand people.
They did not realize that a feast, even eating bread together with a sardine, especially for their own culture, was an image of the kingdom of God and reconciliation after a conflict, like the one between Jacob and Laban:
The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their fathers, judge between us. Then Jacob swore by him whom his father Isaac feared. Then Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain, and called his kinsmen to eat; and they ate, and spent the night on the mountain (Gen 31:53-54).
All of us should be aware that attachment to judgments is a source of disunity, of separation. An obsessive or useless thought can be harmful, but a judgment that traps us like a net certainly separates us from our neighbor. Here are some typical examples in which many of us fit:
* I immediately need to give my opinion on a matter. To do so, I interrupt anyone, or I thoughtlessly write a useless WhatsApp, or I direct a destructive, hasty and harmful criticism to those who wish to do good in a different way than what “should be” according to my criteria; as I have heard quite a few times: That person is content to help by giving money, but does not give his life.
* I judge about someone: This person X is admirable, full of virtues, a true saint. The others are really mediocre, neither talented, nor do they work like him. They cannot be treated with confidence.
* If I do not drink a strong coffee before starting work, I cannot concentrate at all, because my biorhythm works like that and the doctors cannot understand that, although I am hypertensive, in my personal case coffee and salt are good for me.
—ooOoo—
The problems of humanity today are colossal. Not only does famine continue to punish immense populations, but the power of technology in modern warfare, the unstoppable influence of drugs and the consequences of natural disasters are ever more far-reaching. The First Reading relates a historical time of dreadful famine, as described in the second Book of Kings (4:38-41).
Christ’s mission was not, nor is it today, to solve these problems, but to make visible the power of God’s mercy, for which he also healed the sick and satisfied the hunger of some crowds. The First Reading relates in the same way how divine mercy manifests itself every time one of us sinners decides to obey inspiration and make a generous gesture. God does not perform miracles “out of nothing”.
It is curious to compare the attitudes of Philip and Andrew. The former uses the logic of the world to say: There is nothing to do, the numbers of people and food are expressive. But Andrew tries to take advantage of the smallest occasion, the least opportunity, represented by five loaves and two fish. He has no idea how Christ would perform a miracle, which in that case was apparently aimed at satisfying the hunger of a multitude. To say “apparently” means that all those people continued to go hungry in the following days, some of them would even die of malnutrition; the real miracle took place in the hearts of the disciples, who understood better how Providence gives us the opportunity to participate continuously in the divine plan of salvation, which takes place every day, taking us beyond sickness, sin, adversity and death.
That is what happened to the boy who made his small food reserves available to the apostles. Many of us do not quite believe that God the Father has decided that his mercy will materialize through the raw material of our actions, if they are innocent and have a true intention to serve.
A few weeks ago I was sharing an experience with the young people and professors of the Idente Youth.
Some time ago, in one of our parishes, at the end of mass, a ten-year-old boy came up to me and asked me to speak a little apart from the other people. He told me that he thought one of the young adults who used to attend mass had fallen into drug addiction. I could not assume such a thing, but I thanked the boy for his remark and tried to talk to the young man. That child was not wrong and, with the help of grace, we were able to help the young man. That child probably could not imagine the good he had done, but the young man did recognize that God had put that little boy in his path to help him.
It always happens to us this way and perhaps that is why we despise the possible gestures of love that we can make, instead of comfortably and selfishly declaring ourselves “impotent”. It is only before Christ that we have to manifest our helplessness and weakness, which is a declaration of faith, that we fully agree with his words: I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing (Jn 15: 5).
The story is told of a German schoolmaster who, when he entered his classroom in the morning, took off his cap and bowed ceremoniously to his pupils. Someone asked him why he did this. His answer was: You never know what one of these kids might become someday. In fact, he was right: one of them would later become a leading figure in German culture. We do not have to imagine such a thing, for we know that every child of God is called to glory, not simply to be someone more or less important.
—ooOoo—
Just as it happened to the crippled man whom Jesus cured (Mt 9: 1-8), someone, in this case Andrew, had to bring the child to the Master. Not by chance, it was also he who brought his brother Peter to Christ.
The obvious question is: How do I get someone to confidently approach Christ? Of course, there are no rules or techniques, but the Second Reading contains a well-known phrase, which encapsulates not only the necessary personal attitude, opposed to the aforementioned attachments to judgments and desires, but the witness of a community that serves as a humble but sure path to the Trinity: Always be humble and gentle, be understanding, bearing one another in love; striving to maintain the unity of the Spirit with the bond of peace.
On the other hand, each one of us, as we approach to receive the Eucharist, we carry that small seed of faith received in Baptism and we must believe that Jesus will work the miracle we have just mentioned, transforming us into humble and gentle people, while giving us the strength to be united, as St. Paul emphasizes in this Epistle to the Ephesians, written in captivity and aimed at being aware of the need for unity in our communities, for we are in the hands of a God, the Father of all, who transcends all, and penetrates all, and pervades all.
A non-trivial fact is the affirmation of St. John, insisting that they all ate their fill and that there were twelve baskets of bread left over. This “satiety” represents the fullness of life, the unnecessary need to seek other satisfactions, other consolations that the world can offer. It is a way of speaking of the freedom that the disciple of Christ attains, as opposed to the volatile and fleeting joy that comes from submitting to our own judgments and desires, in spite of which, time and again, we commit the same clumsiness, deceived by our ego.
Finally, we can mention that some biblical scholars interpret the miracle not as a “material multiplication”, but as something more immediately spiritual. According to them, it was natural for the pilgrims to take with them some food for the journey, since it was an uninhabited area. Then, the generous attitude of the boy would have triggered in everyone the same generosity, which seems likely, since at the end of the story nothing is mentioned about the usual astonishment of the crowds before the wonders that Christ performed. In this case, in addition to transforming the hearts of the disciples, there would have been a change, at least momentary, in the whole multitude present there. This interpretation is strengthened by the fact that it is unlikely that it was only a child who would have had the foresight to bring food for the journey.
Be that as it may, it is Christ and He alone who moves human generosity to the core. And, in any case, it is true that children are the model for all of us who say we wish to identify with Jesus.
_______________________________
In the Sacred Hearts of Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Luis CASASUS
President
