It is not uncommon to encounter an interpretation of today’s Gospel reading to be nothing more than an simple act of sharing. No miracle. No sacramental grace. No act of divinity.
Their position is that the willingness of the boy to share his five barley loaves and two fish moved others in the crowd to come forward to admit they too had food and had became willing to share it with others. From their perspective, the real miracle was not in any sort of multiplication of loaves, but rather in simply caring.
In reality, this relatively recent theological invention serves only to justify their own theology while attempting to discredit the Catholic Church and ultimately undermine the Sacramental Life instituted by Jesus Christ.
I am sure to deep dive some of these concepts in future homilies. For now, there are three key points to keep in mind when understanding the true context of this reading compared to the popular non-Catholic interpretation that I mentioned.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus makes it very clear the crowd has nothing to eat. There is no possible way that a few people in the crowd could have been hoarding enough food to feed many thousand people.
Watering down the Gospel to a simple act of caring and sharing simply is not a true interpretation of Scripture and it completely ignores what Jesus said.
Further, whenever we see descriptions of signs and superabundance, particularly in the Gospel of John, we should immediately think of sacramental, supernatural miracles.
Saint John makes it very clear people “saw the sign”. They saw the miracle of the multiplication of loaves and fish. They saw the superabundance that resulted from the miracle.
When we come to Mass, we are privileged to see the sign (albeit, with eyes of faith). We are privileged to see the Holy Spirit come down upon bread and wine like the dewfall so that simple bread and wine will become the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Contained in that little wafer is the infinity of God. Contained in that little wafer is the superabundance of grace for our salvation and sanctification.
Finally, Saint John interrupts his story to make it clear that the Feast of the Passover is near. Therefore, the context of this Multiplication of the Loaves is the Passover.
Non-Catholics often generally this, but the Passover is actually the overriding context of all of Scripture. This means the Mass and the Eucharist (the fulfillment of the Passover) is the overriding context of all of Scripture.
When we separate Scripture from the Mass and the Sacramental Life, we are going to get bad interpretations like the one I mentioned at the start of this homily.
When we come to Mass, we come like the crowd in our reading. We come without the comforts of life. We come hungry. We come ready to listen to the Word of God. We come ready to see and receive the sign of our faith. We come with the intention of living out the Sacramental Life of His Church. We come open to receiving superabundant grace through the Eucharist.
We come because of the one thing we seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord.
Thanks be to God!
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