READING OF THE DAY First reading from the Second Book of Kings 2 Kgs 4:42-44
A man came from Baal-shalishah bringing to Elisha, the man of God, twenty barley loaves made from the firstfruits, and fresh grain in the ear. Elisha said, “Give it to the people to eat.” But his servant objected, “How can I set this before a hundred people?” Elisha insisted, “Give it to the people to eat.” “For thus says the LORD, ‘They shall eat and there shall be some left over.’” And when they had eaten, there was some left over, as the LORD had said.
Second reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians Eph 4:1-6
Brothers and sisters: I, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace: one body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
GOSPEL OF THE DAY From the Gospel according to John Jn 6:1-15
Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee. A large crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. The Jewish feast of Passover was near. When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowd was coming to him, he said to Philip, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?” He said this to test him, because he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?” Jesus said, “Have the people recline.” Now there was a great deal of grass in that place. So the men reclined, about five thousand in number. 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. When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, “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. When the people saw the sign he had done, they said, “This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.” Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain alone.
The Gospel of this Sunday’s liturgy recounts the famous episode of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, with which Jesus feeds about five thousand people who came to hear him (cf. Jn 6:1-15). It is interesting to see how this miracle takes place: Jesus does not create the loaves and fishes from nothing, no, but rather He works with what the disciples bring him. One of them says: “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” (v. 9). It is little, it is nothing, but it is enough for Jesus.
Let us now try to put ourselves in the place of that boy. The disciples ask him to share everything he has to eat. It seems to be an unreasonable proposal, or rather, unjust. Why deprive a person, indeed a child, of what he has brought from home and has the right to keep for himself? Why take away from one person what is not enough to feed everyone anyway? In human terms, it is illogical. But not for God. On the contrary, thanks to that small freely-given and therefore heroic gift, Jesus is able to feed everyone. This is a great lesson for us. It tells us that the Lord can do a lot with the little that we put at His disposal. It would be good to ask ourselves every day: “What do I bring to Jesus today?”. He can do a lot with one of our prayers, with a gesture of charity for others, even with one of our sufferings handed over to His mercy. Our small things to Jesus, and He works miracles. This is how God loves to act: He does great things, starting from those small things, those freely-given ones.
All the great protagonists of the Bible - from Abraham, to Mary, to the boy today - show this logic of smallness and giving. The logic of smallness and giving. The logic of giving is so different from ours. We try to accumulate and increase what we have, but Jesus asks us to give, to diminish. We like to add, we like addition; Jesus likes subtraction, taking something away to give it to others. We want to multiply for ourselves; Jesus appreciates it when we share with others, when we share. It is interesting that in the accounts of the multiplication of the loaves in the Gospels, the verb “multiply” never appears: no. On the contrary, the verbs used have the opposite meaning: “to break”, “to give”, “to distribute” (cf. v. 11; Mt 14:19; Mk 6:41; Lk 9:16). But the verb “to multiply” is not used. The true miracle, says Jesus, is not the multiplication that produces vanity and power, but the sharing that increases love and allows God to perform wonders. Let us try to share more: let us try the way Jesus teaches us.
Even today, the multiplication of goods cannot solve problems without fair sharing. The tragedy of hunger comes to mind, which affects the little ones in particular. It has been calculated officially that every day in the world around seven thousand children under the age of five die due to malnutrition, because they do not have what they need to live. Faced with scandals such as these, Jesus also addresses an invitation to us, an invitation similar to the one probably received by the boy in the Gospel, who has no name and in whom we can all see ourselves: “Be brave, give what little you have, your talents, your possessions, make them available to Jesus and to your brothers and sisters. Do not be afraid, nothing will be lost, because if you share, God will multiply. Banish the false modesty of feeling inadequate, trust yourself. Believe in love, believe in the power of service, believe in the strength of gratuitousness”.
May the Virgin Mary, who answered “yes” to God's unprecedented proposal, help us to open our hearts to the Lord's invitations and to the needs of others.
HOMILY OF JOHN PAUL II - Castel Gandolfo, July 29, 1979 "Where can we buy bread so that these people may have something to eat?" Before the crowd that had followed Him from the shores of the Sea of Galilee up the mountain to listen to His word, Jesus began, with this question, the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, which is the significant prelude to the long discourse in which He reveals Himself to the world as the true BREAD of life come down from heaven (cf. Jn 6:41). 1. We have heard the Gospel story: with five barley loaves and two fish, provided by a boy, Jesus feeds about five thousand people. But these men, not understanding the depth of the "sign" in which they have been involved, are convinced that they have finally encountered the Messiah-King, who will resolve the political and economic problems of their nation. Faced with this obtuse misunderstanding of His mission, Jesus withdraws, all alone, to the mountain. We too, dear Sisters and Brothers, have followed Jesus and continue to follow Him. But we can and must ask ourselves: with what interior attitude? With the authentic attitude of faith, which Jesus expected from the Apostles and the fed crowd, or with an attitude of incomprehension? Jesus presented Himself on that occasion as, indeed more than, Moses, who in the desert had fed the Israelite people during the exodus; He presented Himself as, indeed more than, Elisha, who with twenty loaves of barley and spelt had fed a hundred people. Jesus manifested Himself, and manifests Himself to us today, as the One who is able to satiate forever the HUNGER of our heart: "I am the BREAD of Life; whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never thirst" (Jn 6,33). And MAN, especially contemporary man, is so HUNGRY: HUNGRY for truth, justice, love, peace, beauty; but, above all, HUNGRY for God. "We must be hungry for God!" exclaims St. Augustine ("FAMELICI Dei esse debemus" (St. Augustine, Enarrat. in Ps. 146, 17: PL 37, 1895ff.). It is He, the heavenly Father, who gives us the true BREAD! 2. This BREAD, which we NEED, is first of all Christ, who gives Himself to us in the sacramental signs of the Eucharist, and who makes us hear, at every Mass, the words of the Last Supper: "Take this, all of you, and eat it; this is my Body offered as a sacrifice for you. With the sacrament of the Eucharistic BREAD - states the Second Vatican Council - "the unity of the faithful is represented and produced, who constitute one Body in Christ (cf. 1 Cor 10:17). All people are called to this union with Christ, Who is the light of the world; from Him we come, through Him we live, to Him we are directed" (Lumen Gentium, 3). The BREAD we NEED is also the word of God, for "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Mt 4:4; cf. Deut 8:3). Undoubtedly, men too can express and pronounce words of high value. But history shows us how the words of men are sometimes insufficient, ambiguous, disappointing, and tendentious; whereas the Word of God is full of truth (cf. 2 Sam 7:28; 1 Cor 15:26); it is righteous (Ps 33:4); it is stable and remains forever (cf. Ps 119:89; 1 Pet 1:25). We must continually listen religiously to this Word; we must take it as the criterion for our way of thinking and acting; we must know it, through assiduous reading and personal meditation; but, above all, we must make it our own, realize it, day after day, in all our behavior.
--->>-->The BREAD, finally, that we NEED, is grace; and we must invoke it, ask for it with sincere humility and untiring constancy, knowing that it is the most precious thing we can possess. 3. The path of our life, traced out for us by God's providential Love, is mysterious, sometimes humanly incomprehensible, and almost always hard and difficult. But the Father gives us the "BREAD of heaven" (cf. Jn 6:32), so that we may be strengthened in our pilgrimage on earth. I like to conclude with a passage from Saint Augustine, which admirably summarizes what we have meditated on: "It is very clear... how your Eucharist is daily food. For the faithful know what they are receiving, and it is good that they should receive the daily BREAD needed for this time. They pray for themselves, to become good, to be persevering in goodness, in faith, and in the good life... the word of God, which is explained to you every day and, in a certain sense, broken, is also daily BREAD" (St. Augustine, Sermo 58, IV: PL 38,395). May Christ Jesus always multiply, for us too, His BREAD!
Fausti - At the center of the chapter is bread: like the water from which you are born and the air you breathe, even bread is a primordial symbol of life: you eat it for a living. But, unlike water and air, it is not only a gift from the earth and the sky, it is also the fruit of work, seasoned with joy and hard work, hope and sweat. In it is inscribed, for better or for worse, the destiny of man, the only creature called to collaborate with the Creator to bring creation to completion. Jesus has already spoken to the disciples of His food, which is to do the Will of the Father and do His work. He lives on this food, which is the Love of the Father to be communicated to his brothers and sisters, so that they may pass from death to life. His bread is to love as it is loved, his work is to give life to his brothers. Jesus goes beyond the sea to the mountain, followed by the crowd, and tests his disciples to make them understand the bread he will give. Moses went up to the mountain, where the ten Words of Life were given. Now the Word itself will be given as the Bread of Life. Only on this mountain can one live the freedom offered by God. Here the Lord will prepare His banquet, will tear off the veil that covers the faces of all peoples, will eliminate death forever and will show His Face. An insignificant little boy is at the origin of the gift for all. This little boy has put his bread at the service of others. He is the image of Jesus, the Son who came to serve and give Life for his brothers and sisters, calling his disciples to do the same. You can see that there are five loaves and two small fishes: their sum is seven, a number that recalls the completion of creation. This little shared food is the life of the seventh day, the aim of creation itself. The Lord takes the initiative of the banquet and acts in the first person. As he takes the bread with thanksgiving, Jesus is the Son who has in himself, as a gift, the Life of the Father. But the Son is not only One who receives passively, he is the same Love as the Father because he is capable of distributing to his brothers and sisters what he has received. "Taking the bread", "giving thanks" and "distributing" are the words of the Eucharist, which restore to each bread its profound reality. In the Eucharist, creation is fulfilled and every desire of God and of man is fulfilled, every promise of His and our expectation: we receive the Life of the Son and we become children and brothers. The Eucharist makes every crumb of bread the fullness of Life. For it, creation returns to being "beautiful" as it was at the beginning, precisely because the man who takes, gives thanks and distributes, is "very beautiful", the image and likeness of God. Only this Bread can satisfy man's hunger. It is the food of the Sabbath that introduces us to the Presence, in intimacy with God. That is why he orders us to gather the surplus. Jesus wants to arouse the desire for this surplus, for this we must be hungry, not for the bread that perishes. The community of disciples is not always the guardian of this surplus. Yet they keep it and pass it on to us day after day, even if they do not understand it well. A perfect quantity of shared bread abounds, embracing the totality of time and people. Twelve baskets like twelve months of the year, twelve tribes of Israel. Of this fullness there is one for ever and for all.
READING OF THE DAY
RispondiEliminaFirst reading from the Second Book of Kings
2 Kgs 4:42-44
A man came from Baal-shalishah bringing to Elisha, the man of God,
twenty barley loaves made from the firstfruits,
and fresh grain in the ear.
Elisha said, “Give it to the people to eat.”
But his servant objected,
“How can I set this before a hundred people?”
Elisha insisted, “Give it to the people to eat.”
“For thus says the LORD,
‘They shall eat and there shall be some left over.’”
And when they had eaten, there was some left over,
as the LORD had said.
Second reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians
Eph 4:1-6
Brothers and sisters:
I, a prisoner for the Lord,
urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received,
with all humility and gentleness, with patience,
bearing with one another through love,
striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace:
one body and one Spirit,
as you were also called to the one hope of your call;
one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
one God and Father of all,
who is over all and through all and in all.
GOSPEL OF THE DAY
From the Gospel according to John
Jn 6:1-15
Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee.
A large crowd followed him,
because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick.
Jesus went up on the mountain,
and there he sat down with his disciples.
The Jewish feast of Passover was near.
When Jesus raised his eyes
and saw that a large crowd was coming to him,
he said to Philip,
“Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?”
He said this to test him,
because he himself knew what he was going to do.
Philip answered him,
“Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough
for each of them to have a little.”
One of his disciples,
Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him,
“There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish;
but what good are these for so many?”
Jesus said, “Have the people recline.”
Now there was a great deal of grass in that place.
So the men reclined, about five thousand in number.
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.
When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples,
“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.
When the people saw the sign he had done, they said,
“This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.”
Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off
to make him king,
he withdrew again to the mountain alone.
POPE FRANCIS
RispondiEliminaANGELUS
Saint Peter's Square
Sunday, 25 July 2021
[Multimedia]
_________________________________
Dear brothers and sisters, buongiorno!
The Gospel of this Sunday’s liturgy recounts the famous episode of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, with which Jesus feeds about five thousand people who came to hear him (cf. Jn 6:1-15). It is interesting to see how this miracle takes place: Jesus does not create the loaves and fishes from nothing, no, but rather He works with what the disciples bring him. One of them says: “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” (v. 9). It is little, it is nothing, but it is enough for Jesus.
Let us now try to put ourselves in the place of that boy. The disciples ask him to share everything he has to eat. It seems to be an unreasonable proposal, or rather, unjust. Why deprive a person, indeed a child, of what he has brought from home and has the right to keep for himself? Why take away from one person what is not enough to feed everyone anyway? In human terms, it is illogical. But not for God. On the contrary, thanks to that small freely-given and therefore heroic gift, Jesus is able to feed everyone. This is a great lesson for us. It tells us that the Lord can do a lot with the little that we put at His disposal. It would be good to ask ourselves every day: “What do I bring to Jesus today?”. He can do a lot with one of our prayers, with a gesture of charity for others, even with one of our sufferings handed over to His mercy. Our small things to Jesus, and He works miracles. This is how God loves to act: He does great things, starting from those small things, those freely-given ones.
All the great protagonists of the Bible - from Abraham, to Mary, to the boy today - show this logic of smallness and giving. The logic of smallness and giving. The logic of giving is so different from ours. We try to accumulate and increase what we have, but Jesus asks us to give, to diminish. We like to add, we like addition; Jesus likes subtraction, taking something away to give it to others. We want to multiply for ourselves; Jesus appreciates it when we share with others, when we share. It is interesting that in the accounts of the multiplication of the loaves in the Gospels, the verb “multiply” never appears: no. On the contrary, the verbs used have the opposite meaning: “to break”, “to give”, “to distribute” (cf. v. 11; Mt 14:19; Mk 6:41; Lk 9:16). But the verb “to multiply” is not used. The true miracle, says Jesus, is not the multiplication that produces vanity and power, but the sharing that increases love and allows God to perform wonders. Let us try to share more: let us try the way Jesus teaches us.
Even today, the multiplication of goods cannot solve problems without fair sharing. The tragedy of hunger comes to mind, which affects the little ones in particular. It has been calculated officially that every day in the world around seven thousand children under the age of five die due to malnutrition, because they do not have what they need to live. Faced with scandals such as these, Jesus also addresses an invitation to us, an invitation similar to the one probably received by the boy in the Gospel, who has no name and in whom we can all see ourselves: “Be brave, give what little you have, your talents, your possessions, make them available to Jesus and to your brothers and sisters. Do not be afraid, nothing will be lost, because if you share, God will multiply. Banish the false modesty of feeling inadequate, trust yourself. Believe in love, believe in the power of service, believe in the strength of gratuitousness”.
May the Virgin Mary, who answered “yes” to God's unprecedented proposal, help us to open our hearts to the Lord's invitations and to the needs of others.
HOMILY OF JOHN PAUL II - Castel Gandolfo, July 29, 1979
RispondiElimina"Where can we buy bread so that these people may have something to eat?"
Before the crowd that had followed Him from the shores of the Sea of Galilee up the mountain to listen to His word, Jesus began, with this question, the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, which is the significant prelude to the long discourse in which He reveals Himself to the world as the true BREAD of life come down from heaven (cf. Jn 6:41).
1. We have heard the Gospel story: with five barley loaves and two fish, provided by a boy, Jesus feeds about five thousand people. But these men, not understanding the depth of the "sign" in which they have been involved, are convinced that they have finally encountered the Messiah-King, who will resolve the political and economic problems of their nation. Faced with this obtuse misunderstanding of His mission, Jesus withdraws, all alone, to the mountain.
We too, dear Sisters and Brothers, have followed Jesus and continue to follow Him. But we can and must ask ourselves: with what interior attitude? With the authentic attitude of faith, which Jesus expected from the Apostles and the fed crowd, or with an attitude of incomprehension? Jesus presented Himself on that occasion as, indeed more than, Moses, who in the desert had fed the Israelite people during the exodus; He presented Himself as, indeed more than, Elisha, who with twenty loaves of barley and spelt had fed a hundred people. Jesus manifested Himself, and manifests Himself to us today, as the One who is able to satiate forever the HUNGER of our heart:
"I am the BREAD of Life; whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never thirst" (Jn 6,33).
And MAN, especially contemporary man, is so HUNGRY: HUNGRY for truth, justice, love, peace, beauty; but, above all, HUNGRY for God. "We must be hungry for God!" exclaims St. Augustine ("FAMELICI Dei esse debemus" (St. Augustine, Enarrat. in Ps. 146, 17: PL 37, 1895ff.). It is He, the heavenly Father, who gives us the true BREAD!
2. This BREAD, which we NEED, is first of all Christ, who gives Himself to us in the sacramental signs of the Eucharist, and who makes us hear, at every Mass, the words of the Last Supper: "Take this, all of you, and eat it; this is my Body offered as a sacrifice for you. With the sacrament of the Eucharistic BREAD - states the Second Vatican Council - "the unity of the faithful is represented and produced, who constitute one Body in Christ (cf. 1 Cor 10:17). All people are called to this union with Christ, Who is the light of the world; from Him we come, through Him we live, to Him we are directed" (Lumen Gentium, 3).
The BREAD we NEED is also the word of God, for "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Mt 4:4; cf. Deut 8:3). Undoubtedly, men too can express and pronounce words of high value. But history shows us how the words of men are sometimes insufficient, ambiguous, disappointing, and tendentious; whereas the Word of God is full of truth (cf. 2 Sam 7:28; 1 Cor 15:26); it is righteous (Ps 33:4); it is stable and remains forever (cf. Ps 119:89; 1 Pet 1:25).
We must continually listen religiously to this Word; we must take it as the criterion for our way of thinking and acting; we must know it, through assiduous reading and personal meditation; but, above all, we must make it our own, realize it, day after day, in all our behavior.
--->>-->The BREAD, finally, that we NEED, is grace; and we must invoke it, ask for it with sincere humility and untiring constancy, knowing that it is the most precious thing we can possess.
Elimina3. The path of our life, traced out for us by God's providential Love, is mysterious, sometimes humanly incomprehensible, and almost always hard and difficult. But the Father gives us the "BREAD of heaven" (cf. Jn 6:32), so that we may be strengthened in our pilgrimage on earth.
I like to conclude with a passage from Saint Augustine, which admirably summarizes what we have meditated on: "It is very clear... how your Eucharist is daily food. For the faithful know what they are receiving, and it is good that they should receive the daily BREAD needed for this time. They pray for themselves, to become good, to be persevering in goodness, in faith, and in the good life... the word of God, which is explained to you every day and, in a certain sense, broken, is also daily BREAD" (St. Augustine, Sermo 58, IV: PL 38,395).
May Christ Jesus always multiply, for us too, His BREAD!
Fausti - At the center of the chapter is bread: like the water from which you are born and the air you breathe, even bread is a primordial symbol of life: you eat it for a living.
RispondiEliminaBut, unlike water and air, it is not only a gift from the earth and the sky, it is also the fruit of work, seasoned with joy and hard work, hope and sweat.
In it is inscribed, for better or for worse, the destiny of man, the only creature called to collaborate with the Creator to bring creation to completion.
Jesus has already spoken to the disciples of His food, which is to do the Will of the Father and do His work.
He lives on this food, which is the Love of the Father to be communicated to his brothers and sisters, so that they may pass from death to life.
His bread is to love as it is loved, his work is to give life to his brothers.
Jesus goes beyond the sea to the mountain, followed by the crowd, and tests his disciples to make them understand the bread he will give. Moses went up to the mountain, where the ten Words of Life were given.
Now the Word itself will be given as the Bread of Life.
Only on this mountain can one live the freedom offered by God. Here the Lord will prepare His banquet, will tear off the veil that covers the faces of all peoples, will eliminate death forever and will show His Face.
An insignificant little boy is at the origin of the gift for all. This little boy has put his bread at the service of others. He is the image of Jesus, the Son who came to serve and give Life for his brothers and sisters, calling his disciples to do the same.
You can see that there are five loaves and two small fishes: their sum is seven, a number that recalls the completion of creation. This little shared food is the life of the seventh day, the aim of creation itself.
The Lord takes the initiative of the banquet and acts in the first person.
As he takes the bread with thanksgiving, Jesus is the Son who has in himself, as a gift, the Life of the Father.
But the Son is not only One who receives passively, he is the same Love as the Father because he is capable of distributing to his brothers and sisters what he has received.
"Taking the bread", "giving thanks" and "distributing" are the words of the Eucharist, which restore to each bread its profound reality.
In the Eucharist, creation is fulfilled and every desire of God and of man is fulfilled, every promise of His and our expectation: we receive the Life of the Son and we become children and brothers.
The Eucharist makes every crumb of bread the fullness of Life.
For it, creation returns to being "beautiful" as it was at the beginning, precisely because the man who takes, gives thanks and distributes, is "very beautiful", the image and likeness of God.
Only this Bread can satisfy man's hunger.
It is the food of the Sabbath that introduces us to the Presence, in intimacy with God.
That is why he orders us to gather the surplus. Jesus wants to arouse the desire for this surplus, for this we must be hungry, not for the bread that perishes.
The community of disciples is not always the guardian of this surplus.
Yet they keep it and pass it on to us day after day, even if they do not understand it well.
A perfect quantity of shared bread abounds, embracing the totality of time and people. Twelve baskets like twelve months of the year, twelve tribes of Israel.
Of this fullness there is one for ever and for all.