Peace be with you.
Friends, we come now to this marvelous feast
—it happens every June—
this feast of Corpus Christi,
of the Body of Christ,
the Body and Blood of the Lord.
It’s been on my mind a lot, because
as I record these words,
we’re having a great event in my diocese
in the town of Mankato,
which is about midway in my diocese,
and we’re gathering five thousand people,
which is the limit of the civic center there.
So what’s been on my mind a lot recently is
the feeding of the five thousand.
That number, five thousand, why was that the capacity
of the Mankato Civic Center?
Why did we decide upon that figure?
I don’t know.
We came up with it.
But it corresponds, of course,
to this famous story, versions of which
are recounted in each of the Gospels.
It’s the only miracle, by the way,
with the exception of the Resurrection,
which is recounted in all four Gospels.
It must have made a massive impression on
the first Christians,
the fact that Jesus multiplies the loaves and fishes to the
feeding of this great crowd.
What I want to do, with this marvelous
feast in mind, is to look at this story.
I’m going to look at the earliest version of it
in the Gospel of Mark,
because every part of it is worthy of meditation.
Listen now as it begins:
“As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd;
and he had compassion for them,
because they were like sheep without a shepherd;
and he began to teach them many things.”
What’s the first thing we learn here about Jesus?
His compassion.
“Compatior,” to suffer with.
We do not have a distant God
who stands aloof from the world.
No, no.
A God with a compassionate heart,
who understands our pain, our suffering,
our need, our hunger.
Jesus looking out at the crowd and having compassion
upon them is expressive of
the heart of God
on display throughout the Bible.
God is a God of love and compassion.
Even when you’re going through tough times
—and we all do—
you can say, “Well, God is absent.”
God is never absent, but always looking upon
his people with compassion.
And then we hear,
“He began to teach them many things.”
Mind you, this little story
—and this is typical of the Bible,
they often paint literary icons,
I’d call them, sacred pictures—
this is a sacred picture, in many ways, of the Mass.
How does the Mass begin?
With the priest or the bishop operating “in persona Christi,”
in the person of Christ,
looking out upon his people
with compassion.
This beautiful call and response is established:
Christ reaching out, his people responding.
And then the first part of the Mass
is dominated by the Word.
Jesus, out of compassion, teaches them many things.
In our confrontation, encounter par excellence,
with Jesus,
the first thing that we experience is
his teaching us many things.
We listen to his Word.
We’re hungry, physically, yeah,
but we’re hungry intellectually.
We’re hungry spiritually.
And the compassionate Lord, at the Mass par excellence,
teaches us.
“They were like sheep without a shepherd.”
That figure, everybody, is throughout the Bible.
Think of the prophet Ezekiel passing judgment upon the
bad shepherds of Israel, the bad leaders,
and then he channels the words of God:
“I myself will come and shepherd my people.”
Well, here he is. Here he is.
Jesus is now the God of Israel in person,
shepherding his people out of compassion.
There’s the whole Bible in a way.
Now listen as we go on:
“When it grew late, his disciples came
to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place,
and the hour is now very late.’”
Okay, deserted place.
It’s a straightforward description, you might say,
but anybody listening with biblical ears,
when they hear deserted place,
what do they think of?
They think of the desert that separated slavery
in Egypt from the Promised Land.
They think of the forty years of wandering in the desert,
one of the most painful times in the history of Israel
—liberated from slavery, yes, but now forty years
of wandering in the desert.
And what does God do during that time,
but he sends manna from heaven?
“Man hu”
—that’s the Hebrew sense of, “What is that?”
As this mysterious bread from heaven,
this food from heaven, came, people said,
“What is that?”
Precisely when we’re going through the desert times,
that’s when we look for the manna.
That’s when God, out of compassionate love,
will feed us.
So that’s the deserted place.
We’re meant to think of this as a new exodus
and a new feeding with manna.
The disciples say,
“Send them away so that they may go into the
surrounding country and villages and
buy something for themselves to eat.”
Straightforward description again, you might say,
but now read it more spiritually.
What goes wrong with us, everybody,
when we try to feed ourselves,
when we try to satisfy the deepest hunger
of the heart with our own efforts?
“Hey, go buy something to eat.
Yeah, this is all of our efforts.
If I just get enough wealth, I’ll be satisfied.
If I just get enough honor,
then I won’t be hungry anymore.
If I just get enough worldly success,
or whatever it is, then I won’t be hungry.”
So that’s the instinct.
“Well, yeah, go find something for
yourselves to eat.”
It never works.
The puny food that we can find through our
own efforts will never satisfy.
So what is the answer?
Well, listen now to this story.
“But he” —Jesus— “answered them,
‘You give them something to eat.’”
And they said,
“‘Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii
worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?’”
Okay. “You feed them,” the Lord says,
and they say,
“From our own resources? We can’t do it.”
Well, yes. Right, right.
But watch the dynamic.
He wants them to feed the crowd.
He wants them to contribute
even the little they have
as long as they give it to him.
As long as they entrust the little they have to him,
then they can feed the crowd.
See, it’s a marvelous balance or tension
at the heart of the Christian life.
On the one hand, Jesus could just snap
his fingers and feed everybody.
God will simply take care of it.
But see, he gives us the privilege.
He gives us this wonderful prerogative
of cooperating with his grace.
“What little do you have?
Give it to me,
and you’ll find it multiplied unto
the feeding of this massive crowd.”
Now, everybody, think of the history of the Church,
how many times somebody said,
“I mean, Lord, what do I have?
But I’m going to give you the little I got,”
and then found it multiplied.
Think of someone like Francis of Assisi.
“Francis, rebuild my church.”
And so this goofball kid goes around reconstructing
this broken-down church.
He gave Christ the little bit that he had,
but Christ multiplied it unto the feeding of the world.
Think now of the Franciscan order,
stretching across space and time
to the present day and across the world.
Think of Mother Teresa, this little tiny nun,
and she hears the voice:
“Are you willing to serve me in the poorest of the poor?”
And so this little tiny lady, she had nothing.
She had no money, nobody with her.
She had no institutional support behind her.
Nothing.
But the little she had
—her energy and her love and her mind and her dedication—
she gave to Christ, and she found it then multiplied
unto the feeding of the world.
Think of her order, the Missionaries of Charity,
spreading across space and time.
Again and again that story is told.
“You feed them. Give me the little
bit that you have,
and if you give it in the right spirit,
you will find it multiplied.”
And of course, that’s what happens:
it’s the five loaves and the two fish,
but they’re multiplied unto the feeding of this massive
crowd of five thousand.
Think of something else here.
It says before the multiplication,
“He ordered them . . . to sit down in groups
on the green grass.”
And I say,
“Okay, the green grass.
I guess there was grass around.”
But again, listen with biblical ears.
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.”
Remember at the beginning, he looked upon them like
sheep without a shepherd.
There is the compassion of God.
“I myself will come and shepherd my people.”
Well, here he’s doing it.
He’s led them to verdant pastures,
to green pastures,
and there he lays out a banquet for them.
Now, remember I told you at the beginning of the story,
it’s like the Mass.
Jesus looks out at his people,
he’s moved with compassion, and so he teaches them.
There’s the Liturgy of the Word.
What is this, now?
What is this, but the Liturgy of the Eucharist?
Look at the offertory.
Catholics, you know this.
A couple of people will bring forward
to the priest a little wine, a little water,
a few morsels of bread.
It’s the little bit we have.
There’s a collection taken too at that time.
That’s not just extraneous.
That’s part of it, is we’re giving to Christ
the little bit that we have.
But that little ciborium of bread,
that little bit of wine and water,
what happens to it?
It is transubstantiated.
It is elevated, yes, unto the feeding
of the soul to eternal life.
That little bread and wine would satisfy the body
for about five minutes, but transubstantiated,
elevated into the Body and Blood of Christ,
it feeds the soul to eternal life.
You see, here’s the second part of the Mass.
The people lie down in verdant pastures,
the Lord having multiplied what they gave him,
and eat to their satisfaction.
Marvelous, isn’t it?
Marvelous.
And then listen:
“All ate and were filled.”
There it is.
“Hey, go find something for yourself.”
That’ll never fill you up.
Trust me, it’ll never fill you up.
But the food that Christ gives,
his own Body and Blood, that will satisfy you.
They ate until they had their fill.
And then “they took up twelve baskets
full of broken pieces and of the fish.”
Twelve baskets.
Again, you listen with biblical ears.
Twelve. The twelve tribes.
The twelve Apostles.
Twelve, a certain number of fulfillment and perfection.
The return of the exiles.
The twelve.
This food is meant to feed the whole world.
That’s the idea.
The twelve Apostles go out to the ends of the world.
This is not meant just for these five thousand,
but meant for the thousands upon thousands,
millions upon millions across the centuries
who’ll be fed by Christ.
See, when it comes to us, we tend to cling to things,
and then they disappear.
We lose the little we think we have.
But when you are hooked onto the divine power,
what do you find?
You find fulfillment and then superabundance,
a fulfillment beyond fulfillment.
Twelve baskets left over, yes,
to the feeding of the whole world.
So everybody, on the Feast of Corpus Christi,
have before your mind’s eye the compassionate Christ
looking out at you right now,
perhaps lost, certainly hungry.
He teaches you and then he feeds you.
How?
Well, if you give him the little bit you have,
you will find that multiplied
unto the deepest satisfaction of your soul.
And God bless you.