Wednesday in the First Week of Advent, December 6, 2023

Matthew 15, 29-37

At that time: Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, went up on the mountain, and sat down there. Great crowds came to him, having with them the lame, the blind, the deformed, the mute, and many others. They placed them at his feet, and he cured them. The crowds were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the deformed made whole, the lame walking, and the blind able to see, and they glorified the God of Israel.  Jesus summoned his disciples and said, “My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, for they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, for fear they may collapse on the way.” The disciples said to him, “Where could we ever get enough bread in this deserted place to satisfy such a crowd?” Jesus said to them, “How many loaves do you have?” “Seven,” they replied, “and a few fish.” He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground. Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, gave thanks, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds. They all ate and were satisfied. They picked up the fragments left over–seven baskets full.

In St. Matthew’s Gospel, the events in today’s Gospel Reading follow his return from Gentile country northwest of Galilee in present-day Lebanon where he expelled a demon from a little girl.  In doing so Jesus showed the overflowing love of the Lord to all people, including those who did not know him through no fault of their own.  In feeding the four thousand from very little and having an over abundance remaining shows that God’s love is unrestrained and that it is “a good measure and pressed down and shaken together and running over” (Luke 6, 38).  In revealing how God loves, the Lord shows us how we are to love.

“They placed them at his feet, and he cured them.”  His absence for a time in the north stirred up a greater desire for him in Jewish lands.  The Lord does this with us in the spiritual life, seeming to withdraw from us or removing some consolation from us in order to whet our desire for him all the more, and at the same time purifying our desire so that it is for him alone and not for any reason other than himself.  He cured these people who, if they understood who he was, would bless their illnesses or conditions for bringing them face to face with the their merciful God.  “The crowds were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the deformed made whole, the lame walking, and the blind able to see, and they glorified the God of Israel.”  We do not hear of a single person being refused a cure, just as we never hear of a repentant soul being refused forgiveness from him.  “My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, for they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat.”  Rather than leaving the crowd after his healing the  so that he can rest, he seeks a further way to serve.  He is so driven to serve that when he has run out of the sick and crippled he will feed them.  The Lord never thinks of himself.

“Where could we ever get enough bread in this deserted place to satisfy such a crowd?”  The Apostles point out the practical difficulty and this is for our benefit, for we see with them that there was barely enough food for a few hungry people.  “Seven and a few fish.”  This represents the utmost good that unaided human nature can do.  “Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, gave thanks, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds.”  The increase of the loaves and fish signifies how grace effects the offerings of unaided human nature.  We move from the pathetically inadequate, though touching, to more than a enough and glorious.  We see what man alone can do, and then what man assisted by the grace of God can do.  We can interpret this in terms of prayers and in terms of good acts.  “They all ate and were satisfied.”  This reminds us of the manna in Exodus 16, 18: “He who gathered much had nothing over, and he who gathered little had no lack; each gathered according to what he could eat.”  That is to say, no one went hungry and no one took too much.  While God gives more than we can imagine, he does not overwhelm us so that we are harmed in any way.  “They picked up the fragments left over–seven baskets full.” The fragments would be brought into the neighboring towns for the hungry.  Nor were these the dregs of the meal the Lord provided but that which surpassed the appetites of those whom he fed.

Limits will always exist for what we can do, relative to God, for only God is without them.and yet if we offer the few loaves and fish we can afford he will make an abundance out of them with his grace, and reward us in the same way: “what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived” (1 Corinthians 2, 9).