The Gift of God
After forty days the devil tempted our Lord to change the stones into bread but He would not have it. “Not by bread alone does man live but on every Word that comes forth from the mouth of God.” Now our Lord tests Philip asking him to produce bread for the 5000 men who were listening to the Word of God. It is impossible to produce bread out of the thin air and 200 days wages wouldn’t be enough to give each of these men a mouthful. So why did our Lord initiate this quest for bread from the apostles? It is for our sake and we must dive more deeply into the matter for our soul’s salvation.
Philip’s response indicates the inability of the human condition. A human being cannot multiple anything for it is beyond our capacity. This is the beginning of salvation. We must recognize that we cannot do a thing to produce the ransom needed for salvation. If we are to be saved it must be because we humbled ourselves and yielded to the work and word of God. It is this first step that introduces the pray of the true mass. We must bend our wills to accept the impossible that will come from the will of God. Now watch what the almighty does.
Our Lord receives word from Andrew that a little boy (the Jewish nation) possess five barley loaves (five senses, five books of Moses) and two fish (word of the prophets and the psalms), but what are these among so many? Our Lord says “Make the men recline.” Five thousand men were hearing the teaching of Jesus and they with the children and the wives sat down. What does Jesus do? He takes the barley loaves, looks up to heaven and gives thanks. His actions teach us what we are to do every time we eat: bless and thank God. Everything in this story is symbolic so let us unravel the mystery.
The Jewish nation was chosen and prepared by God to be a blessing to the whole world. That blessing consists in sharing the light of God’s revelation and His law. This is indicated by the representative figure of the little boy. The Israelite nation received the law from Moses and the cult from God. They were to place these in the hands of the Messiah who would crack open the barley loaves with His divine strength and nourish all on the words given to Moses. The two fish remind us that the work of the prophets were to call the nation back to the true worship of the one God and the psalms were to be the nourishment of prayer. We need the law and the psalms to feed our prayer life and union with God. In the holy massthe Word of God (the five loaves) are broken by the priests in their reflections presented in the teaching of the sermon.
After the sermon comes the action of the priest lifting up the gifts of bread and wine to the Father representing the sacrifice of the lamb on the altar of the Cross. The word unites with the work to present the person of Jesus Christ, our Savior. It is Christ who distributes the broken barley loaves not the apostles. It is the apostle band that collects the fragments (12 baskets) which will be taken by them and distributed through the representation of the sacrifice throughout the world and down through the ages. These fragments are precious and must not be lost. In other words the Apostles hand on what they have received. Every pope, cardinal, bishop or priest must follow their example and preach what has been revealed by the Son of God.
With the feeding complete and the collection of fragments taken up and the miracle revealed the response of the multitude was mistaken. They wanted to make Jesus a Bread King and He wanted only to become the Bread of Life through the sacrifice of His Body and Blood. Our task today is to understand this mystery interprets our world and our individual lives. It is the mystery of our Mother Mary who received the Word of God with such a pure and innocent heart and body that she became the bride of the Holy Ghost and gave birth to the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Blessed is she who bore the Son of God in order to sit us down and share with us the beautiful words of eternal life. Let us follow her lead and chew on (meditate) the Word of God to come to its fruit in living the Christ like life. Turn to her with a simple “Hail Mary” and listen to the Word in order to do the Work of God.
May your Lenten fast, prayer and almsgiving pick up the pace as we approach the weeks of Christ’s Passion. Let your love express itself through greater sacrifices.
In the hearts of Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Fr. Richard Voigt, S.D.B.
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