Month: July 2024

Deacon Douglas McManaman

The miracle of the multiplication of the loaves is found in each of the four gospels. In John, it appears in the same chapter as the bread of life discourse, and so this account of the feeding of the multitude brings together two aspects of the Christian life, namely Eucharistic devotion and devotion to the poor, the sick, and those in need. The two must go together. In history, they have often been separated. 

Matthew’s version of this miracle is slightly different. We read: “When Jesus heard of it [John the Baptists’ death], he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. The crowds heard of this and followed him on foot from their towns. When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with compassion for them, and he cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said, “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.” Jesus said to them, “There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves” (Mt 14, 13-15).

Two things stand out in this text. First, Jesus had compassion on them. The Greek word for compassion used here is esplagchnisthe: a yearning from the bowels, from the very core of one’s being–a yearning that is “gut wrenching” as we say in English. The more we love, the more we will suffer; the less we love, the more indifferent we become to the sufferings of others. Lovelessness gradually inclines us to organize our lives in a way that removes us from the sufferings of others, so that we remain unaffected by them. But Christ was always moved with compassion, which is painful; it is a longing, like hunger pangs: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, …how many times I yearned to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her young under her wings, but you were unwilling!” Mt 23, 37). There is simply no love without suffering. 

Now John tells us that God is love (1 Jn 4, 16). Moreover, Jesus says to Philip: “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14, 10). And so, if Jesus, at the sight of a large multitude who have nothing to eat, is moved with a gut- wrenching pity, then it follows that suffering exists in the heart of the divinity. There is suffering in God the Father, for Jesus is everything that the Father can say about himself; he is the Word who definitively reveals the heart of the Father. And so, just as there is great rejoicing in heaven, at the repentance of just one person, so too there is suffering and sorrow in the heart of the divinity. This is mysterious, and it is beyond the grasp of human reason alone, that is, completely beyond the reach of natural theology (philosophy).

The next thing to note in this text is Jesus’ response to his disciples’ suggestion to dismiss the crowds so that they can buy food for themselves. He says: “…give them some food yourselves”. This is important; for he lays this task on our shoulders. And of course, the disciples see that this is too large a task for them to carry out. At this point, Jesus shows them that in such situations, they have to rely on him. We give him the little that we have, and he multiplies it and achieves what is beyond our ability to achieve on our own. But we have to act first, that is, we have to first give him the little we have, and he’ll do the rest. 

The Church has always understood herself to be a missionary Church, sent out to all nations to proclaim the good news of the kingdom, which is a mission ordered to the salvation of the human person, and which therefore includes tending to the needs of the body. Even the monasteries were involved in charitable outreach that involved feeding the hungry, and in some cases actually going out and tracking down lost and lonely souls wandering after dark and in need of emergency shelter (See Charles Montalembert. The Monks of the West: From St. Benedict to St. Bernard. London: Nimmo, 1896, p. 227). Moreover, the first hospitals in the west were the monasteries. In short, genuine love of God is inseparable from the love of neighbor. 

The Eucharist is Christ, joined to the matter of this world. The humble matter of ordinary bread is changed into his very body and blood in the eternal act of offering himself to God the Father for the sake of our salvation, in order that we might become him, that his sacrificial spirit of compassion may become our own. That is why those who truly belong to Christ are moved to works of charity, to tend to the needs of the suffering. And that’s how we will be judged. Not on whether we were in agreement with certain theological propositions, nor will we be judged on our acts of piety. We will be judged on how we tended to the least of Christ’s brethren: the sick, the imprisoned, the hungry, the isolated, the lonely and forgotten. 

And so, it follows that Eucharistic devotions are not ends in themselves. The tendency to make them ends seems to be a perennial problem. In 1918, British army chaplain G. Suddert Kennedy wrote: 

I wonder if in our teaching about it we have not tended to make the Sacrament an end in itself rather than a means to an end, the great end of Christ-like life. It has seemed to the man in the street that we were trying to persuade him that regular and frequent attendance at this Service would of itself avail to save his soul, and secure him entry into heaven hereafter. We have failed, in fact, to connect the Sacrament with life. There is a great gulf fixed between the altar and the street, between the sacred and the secular. The man in the street feels instinctively that this is wrong. He feels that salvation depends upon character and not upon ceremonies. He has at last outgrown magic and mechanical religion. He regards it with the deepest suspicion. He may not be a good man himself, but he is quite sure that religious people ought to be good, positively and pre-eminently good. He will have nothing to do with religion which does not make character, and show itself a means to that end. He is sure that the Sacrament was made for man, and not man for the Sacrament (The Hardest Part: A Centenary Critical Edition, p. 135-136. SCM Press. Kindle Edition.

Father Louis J. Cameli makes the same point: “Eucharistic devotions cannot be ends in themselves. The history of Christian spirituality instructs us that all devotions—whatever their form—are always relative to another, higher dimension of faith. … Each time we celebrate the Eucharist, the stakes are high. With our world and our human family, we struggle before the enigma of sin constituted by both our personal failures and the world’s brokenness. We struggle before the enigma of death that seems to signal our extinction and the utter futility of our lives. When we participate in the Eucharist, when we engage and join the mystery of the one who dies and rises and is victor over sin and death, we worship with him in spirit and in truth and join in his victory” (“The bishops are right: We need a national eucharistic revival. But the current plan isn’t enough”, America Magazine, March 21, 2023). 

This gospel for the 17th Sunday in Ordinary time ends with Jesus escaping from the crowd, because they wanted to “come and carry him off to make him king”, and he knew that they did not understand what it means to be Christos. For them, it meant power, a throne of glory, a turban set in gold with jewels, pageantry, exaltation and separation from suffering, etc. But for Christ, the cross is his throne, his crown is made of thorns, and his heart is pierced and wounded with compassion for the sick, the hungry, the imprisoned, and the lonely (Mt 25, 31-46).