Dear friends,

Today’s passage presents Jesus as presiding at the miraculous feeding of more than “five thousand men, not counting women and children.” The same basic story appears six times in the Gospels: it was surely considered important by early Christians.

People in biblical times appreciated a good meal; providing a meal for others was a sign of one’s generosity and hospitality.

Jesus was both famous and infamous for his meals. All through the Gospels he is portrayed as eating with his disciples,  the crowds and even “tax collectors and sinners.” His opponents criticized him for being a glutton and a drunkard, and complained about the bad company he kept.

Jesus’ banquets were intended to teach us something that we had forgotten: that God loves joy and that He is delighted when His children are happy. Jesus teaches us a hidden and forgotten aspect  of the face of God.

As we went through the reading we heard familiar expressions as: “looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples”. These expressions  make a connection with Jesus’ Last Supper and the church’s celebration of the Eucharist.

Strange: Jesus attracts the people; the dis­ciples want to send them away. It is not the first instance: we remember the episode with the children, with the blind beggar etc.

In today’s Gospel Jesus tells the Apostles "You give them something to eat!" In  reality, as I pointed out in past sermons, the translation is not accurate; it should read: “Give yourself to them to eat” . Church leaders should be metaphorically eaten by those who are lead. One of the ancient symbolism for the Eucharist was the Pelican bird that opens its chest to feed its little birds with its blood.

Jesus does not snap his fingers and bread and fish appear magically at will. He asked his disciples what they had; he invited them to share what they had: five loaves of bread and two fish.

The mention of the fish: most probably because that was the ordinary diet, but also because the prophets had foretold that at the end of time, God would have slaughtered the dragons living in the sea and responsible for the sufferings of human beings and offered their flesh as food. It means: in Jesus the devil is defeated. When we celebrate the Eucharist, the devil is defeated.

This is the bread we pray for, everyday. In a country like ours, that God has blessed in so many different ways, we should have joy and happiness shining on the faces of people. We know that it is not so. One wonders: are people more satisfied? I don’t think so if their spiritual hunger remains unfed .

We had in the first reading, the one we took from the book of the prophet Isaiah:"Why spend your money for what is not bread, your wages for what fails to satisfy?”

This message runs contrary to what most of the glossy ads in the magazines are urging us to do when they promise happiness if only we'll buy the advertised product. Too often we find that our inner emptiness remains.

How can we get rid of that restlesness? How can we satisfy the deepest hunger of all: our spiritual hunger? The first reading gives God's answer to that haunting question: "Heed me, and you shall eat well .... Come to me heedfully; listen, that you may have life."

Jesus himself experienced that deep inner hunger which God alone can satisfy. At the beginning of today's Gospel, he has just received the terrible news that his cousin John the Baptist has been executed in Herod's prison. Jesus knows he must get away from the crowds, to be alone with God. Jesus knows that the same destiny is in store for him. He tries to with­draw, by boat, "to a deserted place by himself."

But the people will not leave Jesus alone. Discovering his destination, they get there ahead of him. As the boat nears the shore, Jesus sees "a vast crowd." What has brought them there? Somehow the very ordinary people in that vast crowd sense in Jesus someone who has the answer to their problems.

Jesus' heart goes out to these people. They are "like sheep without a shepherd, harassed and helpless". The simple people loved and honored Jesus because of his courage and his credibility. They run after him, seek him, want to see, hear, touch him, hope for comfort and maybe even healing from him.

Jesus gives them bread, but most so, He gives them love. At Mass we hear saying to us :”Do this, in memory of me”. It is not magic that provides bread and satisfies hunger, but love. Not the love that we receive, but the love which we give.

In Africa I was serving a meal to the children of the Parish. I made sure that it was abundant, more than enough for everybody. I wanted that these children, who were drinking water to satisfy their hunger, to fill their empty stomach, for once they should be satisfied. I was enjoying at the sight of their digging into the food of front of them. One little boy started crying: his dish was almost empty. I asked him why? He said that he could not finish the food and he was thinking of the following days when he would have gone hungry.

God did not snap his finger and feed them, but help me to establish in the Parish the St. Vincent DePaul Society for the poor. We feed the poor and in feeding them we are fed by God because we have received for free the Food that satisfies not only the stomach, but the heart: the food of Charity.