The solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, Sunday, June 19, 2022

Luke 9, 11–17

Jesus spoke to the crowds about the kingdom of God, and he healed those who needed to be cured. As the day was drawing to a close, the Twelve approached him and said, “Dismiss the crowd so that they can go to the surrounding villages and farms and find lodging and provisions; for we are in a deserted place here.” He said to them, “Give them some food yourselves.” They replied, “Five loaves and two fish are all we have, unless we ourselves go and buy food for all these people.” Now the men there numbered about five thousand. Then he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty.” They did so and made them all sit down. Then taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing over them, broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. They all ate and were satisfied. And when the leftover fragments were picked up, they filled twelve wicker baskets.

It makes one curious that the Gospel reading for this great feast is not from John 6, where the Lord Jesus speaks of his Body and Blood as our food, or from the descriptions in the other Gospels of the Last Supper.  The reading from St. Luke’s Gospel about the feeding of the five thousand certainly presages and prepares us for the Lord’s teaching about his Body and Blood, but is no substitute for it.  The Gospel reading for the traditional Latin Mass for this feast, which was celebrated last Thursday, uses John 6, 56-59.

Key to understanding Luke’s telling of the feeding of the five thousand is the struggle between the Lord and his Apostles.  They come to him and urge him to dismiss the crowd.  They are exhausted, hungry, and fully aware that they are in a deserted place.  Perhaps they also fear the crowd turning on them in their hunger.  The Lord’s response came in the form of a challenge, which they may have taken as a rebuke: “Give them some food yourselves.”  The Apostles react incredulously: “Five loaves and two fish are all we have, unless we ourselves go and buy food for all these people.”  But the Lord will have them do as he tells them.  First, he prepares the crowd by having the Apostles sit everyone down, for they would have stood to listen to his teaching.

“Then taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing over them, broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd.”  The Lord said the prescribed blessing over the loaves and fish in the baskets, and then broke them.  He broke the loaves so that the people could eat them.  His breaking the loaves showed his ownership of them and also that he accepted his responsibility as host to feed his guests.  He had his disciples hand out the loaves and fish as though they were slaves at a banquet.  To their credit, the Apostles do not revel and refuse to take part in what must have seemed an impossible task.

“They all ate and were satisfied.”  The people ate until they had enough.  We can imagine the effect of this miracle on the Apostles.  They started as reluctant and as doubting and then became bewildered and amazed.  Perhaps they wanted to say to the Lord, afterwards, as Peter had said at the time of the great catch of fish: “Leave me Lord, for I am a sinner” (Luke 5, 8).  This miracle might bring to mind that at the wedding at Cana, where Jesus produced an over-abundance of fine wine, and the only ones who knew about it were the servants who helped him and the Apostles.  Here too, the Apostles knew very well how little they had to start with and what the Lord had done, while the crowd, or, at least, most of the crowd had no idea of what exactly had happened.

The Lord Jesus, in his overwhelming love for us, gives us not just enough but more, for as we see here: “When the leftover fragments were picked up, they filled twelve wicker baskets.”  He gives us more than we could ask for even if we knew what to ask for.  He gives us his Body and Blood to eat and drink although there was no need, strictly speaking, for him to do this: he redeemed us from sin by his Passion and Death on the Cross.  He gives us this inestimable Sacrament in order to remind us of what he has done for us and in order to fortify us to live holy lives.  He gives these to us too in order to prepare us to see him in heaven, whole and entire, and to enjoy his company there forever.