Today’s Gospel speaks to us of the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. For two thousand years, we were taught that it was a great miracle—that many people were fed from just five loaves and two fish. We were told of Jesus’s power as God and of His miraculous signs.
But starting in 1965, we began to hear something else: that Jesus didn’t multiply anything at all. They claimed the true miracle was that, in Jesus’s presence—moved by His company and love—everyone became generous; that the people there simply took what they had brought from their bags, shared it, and everything was wonderful—a marvelous lunch!
But the Gospel says nothing of the sort.
This miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes appears in all four Gospels. And not one of them tells us that everyone shared what they had simply because everything is beautiful with Jesus and generosity comes naturally to us. Anyone who tells you that is misleading you.
Jesus felt compassion for the people following Him; they were poor and weary. The Gospel tells us that He took the loaves and fish, blessed them, and gave them to the Apostles to distribute to the crowd. And everyone ate until they were satisfied. That is what the text says. Nowhere does it say that the people took food they had brought in their own bags and distributed it, or that everyone ate happily and that was the miracle. No, the Gospel text says nothing of the kind. It was a miracle, because Jesus is God, and He has the power to do what He did. Jesus was not merely a charming man who spoke beautifully—which is why people followed Him; no, it was nothing like that. Jesus is God and He performs miracles; the problem is that we have lost our faith. We do not believe, and so we feel compelled to invent the idea that the miracle lies in being generous or in sharing. Let me tell you something: to be generous and share, we don’t need to believe. An atheist can be more generous than any of us. To believe that Jesus is God and can multiply loaves and fish, one must have FAITH. Do you have it?
If you do not believe that Jesus multiplied the loaves, you will not believe that He is present in the Eucharist, or that He rose from the dead.
