Sunday, July 27, 2003
17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

2 K 4:42-44

A man came from Baal-shalishad bringing bread and wheat to the man of God. These were from the first part of the harvest, twenty loaves of barley and wheat. Elisha told him, "Give the loaves to these men that they may eat."

His servant said to him, "How am I to divide these loaves among one hundred men?" Elisha insisted, "Give them to the men that they may eat, for Yahweh says: They shall eat and have some left over." So the man set it before them; and they ate and had some left, as Yahweh had said.

Eph 4:1-6

I, the prisoner of Christ, invite you to live the vocation you have received. Be humble, kind, patient, and bear with one another in love.

Make every effort to keep among you the unity of Spirit through bonds of peace. Let there be one body and one spirit, for God, in calling you, gave the same Spirit to all. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. One God, the Father of all, who is above all and works through all and is in all.

Jn 6:1-15

Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, near Tiberias, and large crowds followed him because of the miraculous signs they saw when he healed the sick. So he went up into the hills and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.

Then lifting up his eyes, Jesus saw the crowds that were coming to him and said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread so that these people may eat?" He said this to test Philip, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, "Two hundred silver coins would not buy enough bread for each of them to have a piece."

Then one of Jesus' disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said, "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?"

Jesus said, "Make the people sit down." There was plenty of grass there so the people, about five thousand men, sat down to rest. Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks and distributed them to those who were seated. He did the same with the fish and gave them as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten enough, he told his disciples, "Gather up the pieces left over, that nothing may be lost."

So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with bread, that is with pieces of the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.
When the people saw this sign that Jesus had just given, they said, "This is really the Prophet, he who is to come into the world." Jesus realized that they would come and take him by force to make him king; so he fled to the hills by himself.

Commentary

"Five loaves and two fish, what is that among so many?" Like the disciples in today's gospel reading, we find sometimes ourselves in situations wherein our confidence and trust fail us. "I can't do it," we say. We're defeated even before we begin to fight. Jesus' action of feeding the multitude in today's reading is both a gentle reminder to his disciples of the absolute importance of faith, as well as an encouragement to all of us his followers who sometimes find ourselves stretched and challenged by circumstances way beyond what we think we are capable of facing. The storms of life are sometimes so powerful that we find ourselves fearful and terrified, unable to muster the strength and the courage to fight and succeed. When the multitude was fed from those meager loaves and fish, Jesus was sending out a most powerful message to his followers. And it was that there is nothing to fear-not even the fact that our capabilities, talents, and capital are sometimes seemingly so inadequate to the difficulties that come our way. For there is power in faith and trust! There is success and fulfillment awaiting our every action if only we remember that however small our own 'portion's might be, when handed over to Christ, they can become as bountiful and as rich as the abundant bread and fish that fed the thousands of people who were there to listen to Jesus. Trust is an absolute necessity in life, trust in God, trust in ourselves. With it we can move mountains, without it, we can do nothing. There is much truth to that oft-heard line: "We do our best, and leave to God the rest."

Read also: • Gospel Reflections by Fr. Gerry Pierse, C.Ss.R.
          • Biblical Commentaries fro Diario Biblico

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