Saturday in the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time, February 12, 2022

Mark 8, 1-10

In those days when there again was a great crowd without anything to eat, Jesus summoned the disciples and said, “My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will collapse on the way, and some of them have come a great distance.” His disciples answered him, “Where can anyone get enough bread to satisfy them here in this deserted place?” Still he asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” They replied, “Seven.” He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground. Then, taking the seven loaves he gave thanks, broke them, and gave them to his disciples to distribute, and they distributed them to the crowd. They also had a few fish. He said the blessing over them and ordered them distributed also. They ate and were satisfied. They picked up the fragments left over — seven baskets. There were about four thousand people. He dismissed the crowd and got into the boat with his disciples and came to the region of Dalmanutha.

“In those days when there again was a great crowd without anything to eat.”     We might wonder about these people who wander far from their homes without provisions.  They came in ones and twos, perhaps in families, drawn by the power of Christ to hear the word of God from the only one who could give it to them.  Perhaps they could not have explained why they came to him.  As the Lord asked of another crowd at another time about John the Baptist: “What went you out into the desert to see? A reed shaken by the wind? But what went you out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Behold they that are clothed in soft garments are in the houses of kings” (Matthew 11, 7-8).  The Lord’s answer to these questions applies even more to him than to John: “But what went you out to see? A prophet? Yea I tell you, and more than a prophet” (Matthew 11, 9).  They knew John either by hearing him themselves or by his reputation.  He was a powerful, stirring preacher.  But Jesus of Nazareth preached more powerfully and he performed miracles, besides.  And so they went out and they could not leave.  What he told them gripped them and made them feel the love of God for them.  This was the fulfillment of the Law, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord does man live” (Deuteronomy 8, 3).  

The Lord himself knew hunger and he knew the people had traded away their dinners for the spiritual bread he provided them.  He felt deep compassion for them who had done this: “My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat.”  He will show them now that he cares for their bodies as he cares for their souls.  He knows them, too.  It is not merely a crowd or an audience to him: “If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will collapse on the way, and some of them have come a great distance.”  An entertainer or a Pharisee would not know or care that members of a crowd had come from afar.  Besides this, such a one would expect to be fed by them after his great show.  They should be concerned with him.  Certainly, the Lord was exhausted after all his preaching, but he does not cease to serve on account of this.  A good and shrewd servant, he sees how their need and knows how to provide for it.  

The Lord Jesus could have summoned up a great feast out of nothing, or had the sky rain down manna as he had done centuries before for the Israelites in the wilderness.  Here, he takes the little food that is available and from it produces a dinner so great that enough remains left over to make another such dinner.  In this way he shows that the littleness of human flesh abounds for the salvation of the world when joined to a divine nature.  The action of fasting and then hearing the word of God prepares us for receiving the Meal the Lord prepares for us.  This is, in fact, the outline of the Holy Mass.  The overabundance reminds us of the miraculous nature of this meal, and as the Lord used the Apostles to distribute the Meal to us, he uses us to distribute, in some way, “the fragments left over” to those who remained behind.  In our daily lives, we do this by our good works and words.

“He dismissed the crowd.”  The Lord does not simply walk away, but formally sends the people back to their homes so that they can share the good the Lord had done for them: “Go into your house to your friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for you, and has had mercy on you” (Mark 5, 19).