4 August 2025 - no need for them to go

Today's Readings
(Audio)

"This is a deserted place and it is already late;
dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages
and buy food for themselves."

It was as though the disciples told Jesus that the crowds now had more important matters with which to deal. They had spent a more than reasonable amount of time on the spiritual and religious aspect of their lives and now could no longer delay the necessary and practical matters that had been delayed during this desert detour. 

He said to them, "There is no need for them to go away;
give them some food yourselves."

Jesus told the disciples that, although this aspect of their lives was indeed something necessary, it did not require being separated from the spiritual sphere of life found in his presence. It seemed, however, like it did. It seemed to require such focus and commitment that it could not be achieved nor the goal attained while remaining close to Jesus. 

But they said to him,
"Five loaves and two fish are all we have here."
Then he said, "Bring them here to me,"

When we don't have enough we have either the option of leaving spiritual things for later and seeking out these necessities on a solo mission or else bringing what little we do have to Jesus as a starting point. The later seems fraught with potential to embarrass us both spiritually and practically. It doesn't seem to us to be the right starting point for concrete challenges and demands that come about because of the exigencies of life in this world. We may speak to Jesus about the spiritual bread of God's word. But satisfying actual hunger? Hadn't we better see to that ourselves? And yet this shows our lack of trust in Jesus, revealing us as not much better than the exodus generation that grumbled against Moses.

Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven,
he said the blessing, broke the loaves,
and gave them to the disciples,
who in turn gave them to the crowds.

We tend to think that Jesus is only concerned with abstract and heavenly things with no connection to our physical lives here on earth. But we need to remember that he designed to earth and himself created and sustains all physical reality. He did not place us on earth merely so that we could one day leave it behind for heaven. He gave us bodies because bodies are so good that one day he will raise them to eternal life. The need for food is not something that we will ever fully forget since physical food points not only to heavenly wisdom as a symbol but also to the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, as a foreshadowing. That means that if we don't keep a spiritual relationship to earthly things but try to deal with them as a separate secular part of life, without input from Jesus, we won't be in good shape either for the earthly things or for those of heaven.

What things compel us to say that the crowds must be dismissed, that we must send ourselves away from Jesus to attend to matters into which he, we imagine, has no interest? There are no genuinely good things in which Jesus has no interest. And when we invite him even into the ordinary matters of our daily lives we experience that even in those things his joy can fill us and bring us abundance.

They all ate and were satisfied,
and they picked up the fragments left over–
twelve wicker baskets full.

Damascus Worship Featuring MarySarah Menkhaus - Body And Blood