Gospel: Mt 14:13-21
This Sunday’s Gospel shows us the compassionate heart of God, who anticipates our needs and satisfies the deepest hunger of the human person. We read: “When Jesus disembarked and saw the great crowd, he was moved with compassion for them and healed their sick.” He was moved with compassion. For Jesus, merely recognizing the situation is not enough; it is necessary to act, to offer solutions, and for this he involves his disciples and counts on their contribution.
“Five loaves and two fish” may seem insignificant, yet they contain the power of gratuitousness and express the solidarity of giving generously everything one has. Jesus approaches the crowd to accompany them and free them from the hardship they suffer; therefore, he does not accept the disciples’ proposal: “Send the people away so that they may go to the villages and buy food for themselves.” He replies: “You yourselves give them something to eat.”
He invites them to committed action, demanding words with a profound social and charitable dimension that we meditate on in today’s Gospel. Jesus wants to involve us in his mission. He wants us to place all our gifts and abilities at the service of others. His empathy for the daily problems of the people must also become our own. We are called to remain attentive to what is happening around us and to respond according to our possibilities.
Everything we do for a more humane, just, and fraternal world is an offering of five loaves and two fish to solidarity. Many people hunger for affection, to be listened to, accompanied, understood… In a word, they hunger for human warmth that we can give.
“He broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people.” Jesus desires our collaboration, our hands, so that through divine action and in trust, any gesture we make for others, however small, if done with love, may be blessed and transformed by him into the superabundance of shared bread.
The miracle of the multiplication of “five loaves and two fish” foreshadows the great mystery of the Eucharist, spiritual nourishment, the Bread of Life extended freely to all the peoples of the earth to give life, and life in its fullness, abundant and eternal.
Sr. Pilar Bosoms, OP
Province of St. Raymond of Penyafort
