PaddlingPadre

This episode of the feeding of the five thousand, familiar though it is, nevertheless has its share of complexities. There are multiple levels to what is going on here, as we see clearly the humanity of our Lord together with the working of his divine power and the operation of providence.

  First, St. Matthew tells us that when Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. We find Jesus, then, in a state of grief, mourning the violent and unjust death of his friend. In a very understandable way, he has, in his grief, separated himself from the noise and clamor of the crowds to be alone, to be still and in silence.

And so, were it not for the fact that St. Matthew tells us otherwise, we might well imagine how Jesus could have responded when the crowd followed him, seemingly arriving by foot on the opposite shore ahead of Jesus, such that when Jesus disembarks, he finds himself not in solitude, but rather in precisely that same situation from which he had sought a respite: surrounded by a vast crowd eager for his attention. And yet, Jesus is not annoyed, he is not bitter, he is not angry, as many of us might have been if we were likewise interrupted in our grief, but rather his heart was moved with pity for them.

I believe there is a lesson in this, because grief and suffering have this capacity to heighten our ability to love. Not, of course, that Jesus needed to learn how to love, because God is perfect love and Jesus is the incarnate Second Person of the Holy Trinity, but by loving in the midst of his grief and with his grief Jesus shows the proper way in which our grief ought to be directed. Perhaps this is easier to see if we consider its opposite: it is possible for grief to embitter a person, to make them hesitant to love, or angry, or even violent, lashing out in the way that an animal might when it is wounded. More positively, though, grief and suffering can lead one to a greater empathy from which love might more readily spring, and it is this that Jesus demonstrates for us, as in his own woundedness and pain he looks upon the woundedness and pain of the crowd and is moved with pity for them as he begins to move amongst them and cure their sick.

Now as Christians, if we would be perfect as we are called to be, perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, then we must strive to use every moment and every circumstance of this life as an occasion for growing in the virtue of charity, even and especially the difficult moments of suffering and pain, and by his own example here (though not only here – most especially by his passion), Jesus shows us how this might be done.

But the love of Christ for the crowd does not stop with his healing of their sick. As the day draws on into evening, he of course works that wonder by which we remember this episode when he miraculously multiplies the loaves and the fishes, as out of love for the crowd he makes use of his divine power to provide for their physical need.

To this point, we could interpret everything about this story in terms of Jesus’ psychology, in terms of the love that he felt for the crowd. But on another level, there is also the prophetic significance of all of this. The miracle of the multiplication in particular is rife with prophetic significance. It looks back, for instance, to our first reading from Isaiah: Come, receive grain and eat; Come, without paying and without cost. Heed me, and you shall eat well, you shall delight in rich fare. And then too it looks even further back, to the mana which God provided for the Israelites in the desert, the bread from heaven by which He sustained them in deserted places, such that Jesus’ own provision of bread and of fish becomes a way of manifesting to the crowd his divine identity as the Son of the Father.

And then, because this miracle prophetically looks back to Moses and to Isaiah, it also looks ahead to the mysteries of the Church, to the mysteries of which we ourselves partake in this Eucharist. For the rich fare of which Isaiah speaks does not refer to mere physical food, since he says also: Come to me heedfully, listen, that you may have life. Now life, lasting life, does not come from physical food. This is why our Lord says to the crowd in John’s gospel that their ancestors ate mana in the desert and died, but that those who eat of the bread that he will give, the bread of his body, will not die but have eternal life.

And so we have to see these two things together if we want to more fully appreciate what is going on in this gospel. The feeding of the five thousand is a manifestation of Christ’s love for the crowd, a love that is heightened by empathy born of grief. It is also, at the same time, a prophetic sign that works to reveal the reality of Christ’s divine Sonship, as well as look forward to the Christian mysteries, most especially the Eucharist.

And so then, finally, if we consider those mysteries, if we consider the Eucharist, then we must see there the synthesis of these two realities: the divinity of Christ together with his limitless love for the human race. For the Eucharist is not merely the manifestation of a divine power, but beneath its appearances is hidden divinity itself, and this divine marvel is given to us out of God’s love and for the sake of keeping us in God’s love.

St. Paul movingly asks in our second reading What will separate us from the love of Christ? He is convinced, he says, that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor present things nor future things, nor powers nor height nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. This is a great confidence, too great a confidence, in fact, to be based on something as transitory as a momentary healing or a one-time meal of bread and fish, however miraculous. No, if our confidence of remaining in the love of Christ is based on anything, it is based upon the words that Jesus spoke at the last supper and upon our reception of his flesh and blood, that flesh and blood offered up for us on Calvary, and upon his promise that whosoever should eat of his flesh and drink of his blood would not die but have eternal life. For there, in the sacrament, is found the consummation of Christ’s love, that same love which moved him to pity for the crowd, and in which he now sustains us, not merely for an evening as was the case with the prophetic sign, but rather, now that sign has passed into reality, for eternal life.