Fr Marco Lazzaron
reparing a meal for many people requires a lot of work and particular attention to the preliminaries. I get worried even if I must cook for Fr Peter and myself only! However, sometimes I feel confident especially when I remember the story of my grandma who was able to share one egg with her eight siblings…
The scene of the distribution of loaves for the crowd, which John describes as the fulfillment of 2 Kings 4:42-44, has a very homely taste, for those who experience this style of hospitality and brotherhood. Jesus shows himself as an extraordinary master of the table: in him became a parable and manifestation of the dilated heart of God.
On the place “there was a lot of grass” because the Creator had liked to prepare the seats with delicacy and care. The entire creation was designed to welcome its most beautiful tenant in the best possible way. Creation is a common home, Pope Francis told us, and as everyone’s home, it needs to be safeguarded. We can eat together if we learn the domestic art of thrift and solidarity, which comes from a soul capable of gratitude and amazement.
The minds accustomed to calculations and the style of consumers, typical of the disciples closest to Jesus – those who will have to learn… at their own expense that the logic of calculations in God is different – cannot even imagine what is about to happen. Perhaps they have forgotten the humble availability for hospitality typical of their Jewish families, but above all they have for now become accustomed to considering Jesus as their own small and precious heritage.
Jesus, on the other hand, belongs to everyone, he gives himself to everyone. His being broken is expressed in the extraordinary sign of total sharing. However, he needs help, from someone who no one else would have taken seriously: a child, with “five barley loaves and two fish”. The disproportion is unnatural. Compared to the immensity of the crowd (five thousand men alone!), what was available seems even more ridiculous. But Jesus took care of the preliminaries well, following the example of God the Father and his earthly family.
This is the teaching of the Eucharist (which, coincidentally, etymologically means ‘thanksgiving’). Giving thanks is a strategy not to hold back the little you have but to make it available, and to find it as a hundredfold blessing. And the portions become exaggerated, just as the love of God is exaggerated.