“Give them some food yourselves”
(Mt. 14,13-21)
Rev. Alexander Diaz
This Sunday’s Gospel presents us Jesus in the banks of the sea of Galilee, surrounded by a vast crowd from all over the region. They follow Jesus longing to hear his words. Jesus, in His teachings, talk to them about the Kingdom of Heaven and hours will go by without the people being aware.
They were attentive to his mouth. When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said, “It is already late, dismiss the crowds to that they can go the villages and buy food for themselves” and Jesus, in a certain ironic tone answered them: “There is no need for them to go away, give them some food yourselves”.
If they were his guests, they were also invited to eat with Him. He was not going to allow them to go away with an empty stomach. Probably, because of this answer, they were more confused than ever. ¿How were they going to feed all these people? Not even two hundred dollars worth of bread, in our time, will feed all these people, they thought. A boy from the multitude offers Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, all he had in his lunch box, five loaves and two fishes. But this, it was nothing for such a vast crowd. It was a minimal amount of food. It was really nothing.
This is when Jesus intervenes and begin to realize the wonderful miracle of the multiplication of the loaves that we all know about. ¿What really happened? Two things, apparently very simple, but prodigious and crucial: First: the boy’s offering of his “food”, which was hardly nothing and second that he put it in Jesus hands.
And we know what happened afterwards: five thousand men were filled with five loaves, not counting women and children, and the evangelist tells us that; “twelve wicker baskets were filled with the fragments left over”. All Jesus miracles were done because of the strong faith of the people who asked for them.
This one, in addition, required the generosity of this young boy. As if the evangelist was trying to tell us that, to obtain a miracle of your own conversion or the self human and spiritual progress of oneself, it always requires the generosity of someone else. Give it all and give it from the heart.
Similarly, when it comes to helping others, there are so many times we have in our baskets the five loaves and two fishes that our neighbor needs. Sometimes to give alms, sometimes to allow another person to go by in the street, give a smile that will give confidence to our own children or a coworker, after we have suffered a mishap or a small accident.
The five loaves are, without any doubt, a representation of the gifted talents that the Lord has given us. Only in the measure we give to others, will they be fruitful and produce all that they can. If we save them for ourselves, they might perish. We have to remember that the miracle began when the young boy gave the Teacher his loaves, so He was able to feed the vast multitude. There were only five loaves and two fishes. That was insignificant, it was nothing of course.
It was absolutely evident the huge disproportion between the material means that they disposed of and the results that the Lord attained. Yes, but to materialize this miracle it was necessary those five loaves and two fishes. Without them, nothing would have taken place. And the Lord wants to count with that, in order to realize the miracle.
The Vietnamese Cardenal Franxis Van Thuan, spent thirteen years in prison under the communist regime during the cruel religious persecution in his country said: “I will do like the boy in the Gospel, he gives Jesus his five loaves and two fishes: that is nothing for such a vast multitude of thousands of people, but that is all I have. Jesus will do the rest.”
If we look for our happiness with passion and determination, we have to give Jesus all that we are and all that we have. It does not matter if it is almost nothing or practically nothing. The important thing is to give it all, because he wants to count with hardly nothing in order to do his deeds. The only thing you need to do, is very simple, put it all in His hands. He will take care of everything else.
Let this be then, the moral and the teaching of today: Be generous and magnanimous with the Lord and with the others, give yourself, don’t be selfish and stingy. Let us give of our material and spiritual possessions. Share our time, our things with others, but most of all, give yourself to your neighbor.
It does not matter if we only have five loaves and two fishes! Lets us lay all our projects, worries, concerns, fears, desires, dreams, families, relations, “everything” in the hands of the Lord, because we know that “everything is in the hands of the one who is in charge of the matter”.
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