“ ‘Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.’ So they collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat.”
Jesus asks Philip where they could buy enough food for the crowd that followed Jesus up the mountain. He does this to test Philip, who gives Jesus a matter-of-fact reply: “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.” But it is Andrew, Peter’s brother, who suggests something that Jesus follows up on: a boy in the crowd has five barley loaves and two fish. “Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were reclining, and also as much of the fish as they wanted.” How many times throughout the Gospel Jesus does this! He takes the little given to him, blesses it, and returns it to us in superabundance.
This miracle, which takes place near the time of Passover, is a kind of Last Supper before the Last Supper. Because of that, in it is a prefiguring of the Mass and the Eucharist, a sharing in life-sustaining food that fully satisfies, a dwelling in the house of the Lord. God, help me understand what it means to seek you as the crowd that followed you were hungry for food but also for so much more. Help me know what it means to be satisfied, as today’s Psalm says, to gaze on your loveliness and contemplate your temple.
To contemplate the Lord, to dwell in his house, I can imagine the risen Jesus asking Thomas to put his hand into his side, putting his finger into the nailmarks. That also, as grotesque as it seems, is to gaze on the loveliness of the Lord and to share in the Paschal meal; it is to take the broken bread and have more than I could eat.
Today when I am caught up in the flow of the day and the tasks I am given, I want to remember it’s not about measuring how much productive labor will yield but instead a trusting in the little given to God to accomplish his work, not mine. I want to remember to be like the boy who gave what he had and found through God’s work more superabundant grace than I could possibly imagine.