Master·evangeli.net
Today's Gospel + short theological explanation
He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground. Then, taking the seven loaves he gave thanks, broke them, and gave them to his disciples to distribute, and they distributed them to the crowd. They also had a few fish. He said the blessing over them and ordered them distributed also. They ate and were satisfied (…).
The multiplication of the loaves. Priority of the spiritual
EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)Today, we consider the first multiplication of the “loaves”. It’s one of the great narratives related to the “bread” in Jesus life. What is the reason for Jesus to do something which before —also in the desert— was rejected as temptation?
The crowd had come to hear the Word of the Lord and had left everything. And so, as persons who had opened their hearts to God and to the others in reciprocity, they can receive the bread in an appropriate way. This miracle of the loaves is based on three elements: 1) the search for God, for His Word, with a correct orientation of the whole life; 2) bread should be asked of from God; 3) a fundamental element resides in the mutual disposition to share (listening to God turns into living with God and it leads from faith to love, to the discovery of the other).
—Jesus is not indifferent to men’s hunger, to their material needs, but places them in the adequate context and grants them the proper priority.
