In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
We read the Gospel from year to year, and from
generation to generation in new contexts, in the face of now situations,
whether they are historical or personal. And every time, a passage or
another may strike us in a new way.
Today we have read the passage about the feeding of the
multitude by Christ. And more often than not I have read in the Fathers
and in the spiritual writers their sense of wonder at the mercy of God
and of the power of God Who could feed so many with so little, Who could
indeed, work miracles within a world so much estranged from Him, when
just a glimpse of faith, a crack in our armour of faithlessness allowed
Him to act.
And reading today this passage of the Gospel I was
struck anew with words of Christ. The disciples call upon Him to send
away the multitudes, because the day is spent, distance from the place
where they are to the neighbouring villages is great, tiredness will
overcome them, and darkness, if they stay longer. And yet, they have not
eaten a whole day, listening to the life-giving word of Christ.
And Christ says to the disciples: No, they need not
depart; y o u give them to eat... How can they feed a multitude of that
kind? A thousand men, women, children, and all they have is five loaves
of bread and two fishes? And here is a challenge of Christ to them, and
of Christ to us. Yes — in a way, God alone can perform this miracle; but
not if we do not contribute with openness of heart, and with an open
hand. He did not say to His disciples: Keep as much as you need for
yourselves, and give the rest, your left-over to others. He says to
them: Take all you have, and give it all...
Isn't it something which the Lord says to us n o w, in a
very special way, in days where we are so secure, so rich, so opulent,
and when we hear day after day of the hunger, the misery, the death
indeed from starvation of thousands and thousands of people. And what
the Lord says to us is simply: Give what you have and let Me act
afterwards; do not ask Me to work a miracle where you could do the thing
yourselves...
The Apostles could do little; they could share only five
loaves and two fishes; but we can share so much! If our hearts were
open, and from hearts of stone God had made hearts of flesh within us,
if we had learned anything of generosity and of mutual responsibility,
if we had learned a little, o, so little! — about loving our neighbour
actively, there would be no hunger in the world.
And what this Gospel says to us today, is, ‘look round’;
look round at every person who is hungry, every person who is homeless,
every person who is in need, and remember that each of these persons is
your own responsibility, that all their hunger, all their homelessness,
all their misery is ultimately the result of you opulence, your comfort,
your richness and your refusal to share, to give. Not to give beyond
your means — just to give.
If we only remembered, as one Saint, whose name I can't
recall now, says in one of his writings, that whenever he eats a morsel
which is not a necessity, whenever he acquires or possesses anything
beyond his strict needs, he has stolen it from the hungry, stolen it
from the homeless, stolen it from the one who has no cloths — he is a
thief.
Isn’t that addressed to us much more sharply than to
this ascetic?
We must reflect on this, because we are behaving like
bad, unworthy stewards; there i s such thing as stewardship of wealth —
intellectual, emotional, moral and material. You remember probably the
story of the unworthy, the unfaithful steward who had cheated his
master, stolen from him, and when he was to be dismissed by his master
who had discovered his dishonesty, he called the people who owed money
to his master, and reduced their debt. This is something which we could
learn. He turned to people, and gave whatever help he could; we do not.
Let us reflect on these words of Christ: They need not depart from My
presence to order to eat; give them you what they need... And if we
looked round us, not far beyond but just round us at the needs of people
who are hungry, who are homeless, who are deprived of rights, or simply
our neighbours who are at times so lonely, need a word of comfort, need
friendship, solidarity, we would begin to fulfil this commandment of
Christ.
But let us not deceive ourselves; it is not by words of
consolation, by kind gestures that we will have fulfilled it. Christ
said: Give all you have... and to us perhaps, taking into account the
little faith which we have, and the narrowness and hardness of our
heart, He will say: Give what is superfluous in your life — but give
true thought to what is superfluous, to what you spend on yourself
unnecessarily, without even deriving true joy and pleasure, an advantage
from it — give it, and then, leave it to God to fulfil the gift, to do
the rest.
This is the judgement of God upon me; it is also the
call of God addressed to each of you.
