Then he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of [about] fifty.” 15 They did so and made them all sit down. 16 Then taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing over them, broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd.

From 5 barley loaves, and 2 fish, 5000 people ate their fill and there were 12 baskets of fragments left over. This miracle is a fulfillment of the promise and abundance of God’s love, it prefigures the miracle of transubstantiation that Jesus created at the last supper, and it forsadows the miracle of the eucharistic that happens at every mass. The numbers mentioned here are very intresting to consider as well. The young boy represents the jewish people bringing their meager offering to the Lord, the 5 loaves represents the 5 books of the torah (the law), the 2 fish represents the teachings of the prophets, and when you add them up we get 7, the number of perfection, completeness, divine fullness, and sabbath rest. Meaning when you live life by the law and the prophets, you will find divine completeness, and can rest in the God’s divine will. The 5000 represents a great multitude of the world’s people, and the 12 baskets represents the 12 tribes of Israel, and the new gathering in of the dispersed people of Israel.

Yet despite all of these metaphors, this miracle of the multiplication of bread actually really did happen. The modernist would like you to believe that the miracle was a metaphor too, and that it was only people sharing what they had with each other. But this idea should not be considered seriously. These athiests do not believe that Jesus was God, and they desperately do not want you to believe it either. They eagerly try to find other ways to explain how miracles happen. But this is a blatant attempt to steal your faith away, and it must be rejected completely. This multiplication was indeed a miracle, and it actually happened. A great multitude of people witnessed it, 5000 men plus their wives and children, and it is recorded in the history books.

Many have tried to explain how this miracle might have happend. Some say it happened all at once, and Jesus took the small offering and multiplied it into a great pile of food which was then distributed. But that seems too gratuitous and show’y for Jesus. I believe that God is more subtle than that. Here is how I think that this miracle might have happened. Imagine someone hands you a whole loaf of bread, you break it in half, and then hand the other half to the next person,  but as you hand over the loaf to the next person it is a whole loaf again. This miracle would then have been repeated over and over…until all personally witnessed the miracle, everyone was fed, and there was much left over, I think that is more in line with How Jesus taught us when He was in the world. But regardless of how it happened, this had to be a truly an incredible thing to behold, and unquestionably a miracle.

But there is much more to this event than simply the miracle of multiplication, it is actually a fulfillment of the all of the care and protection that God provided the Jewish people in the old testament, and a prefigurement of the future and how God will provide all that we need in the eucharist? There are many times in the old testament that stories have foreshadowed this moment of the 5000, and the future feeding of the whole world in the eucharist. You could start with Joseph storing up grain in egypt for Pharoah, and then feeding the whole world when the famine came. Also with Moses in the desert, asking for God to give them food, and the Lord sends down manna in the morning, and quail in the evening, and all were fed. Or you could look to 1st Kings where Elisha feeds 100 people from 20 barley loaves.

All of these moments foreshadow todays reading, and the future miracle of the eucharist but the ties between Elisha in the old testament, and Jesus at the last supper are very striking. They both occur close to the time of passover. They both consist of the people sitting down and reclining. They both consist of the great high priest saying the words of institution…, Take this bread, give thanks, break the bread and distribute to all that are present. You do not have to be a bible scholar to see the connections here, and it is truly remarkable when you really think about it. This moment had be planned and forseen by God from the very beginning.

But just as the todays reading is the fulfillment of the old testament typology, our eucharist today is the fulfillment of everything Jesus did and taught in His time on this earth. Our catechism says that the eucharist is the “source and summit of our faith,” and there is no more consise or acurate description of it than that. Jesus takes what little we have to offer, He multiplies it, and pours Himself into it, turning it into super-abundant food. We at mass bring our small offering of bread and wine, and Jesus turns them into His real pressence…, His body, blood, soul and divinity. The food that gives eternal life.

Lastly, this metaphor also points to the superabundant promises that God, in His infinite mercy has for us in heaven. We sinful humans can only offer Him a broken soul, and a weak faith, but through His grace and unfathomable mercy, He turns that small offering into eternal joy and happiness with Him in heaven. If we would just set aside our pride and humbly give Him back a small portion of what He has already given us, He will in turn, lavish us with unimaginable gifts, and satiate every good desire we have.

These are promises that come directly from Jesus Himself. He said that those that eat this bread and drink this wine will never hunger or thirst again. He is not refering to the physical goods of this world but the spiritual ones. The Ignatious study bible says when we give away our spirtual gifts… “they all multiply when shared, in contrast to material goods like money and time and energy, which divide when shared.” When you give away God’s goodness, truth and beauty, you do not have less but you have more. Pope St. John Paul II called this principle the law of the gift.

Ultimately, most of us still need food to live, and our time in this world is often devoted to the procurement and consumption of these earthly goods. But with great faith “our daily bread” in the eucharist, is really all that we need to survive. And as proof of this, there are even miracles of saints that lived for years on only the bread and wine of the eucharist. But for the rest of us with a small faith, the gift of the eucharist will, over time, start to transform our small gifts into a superabundant food that will ultimately sustain us for all eternity.

So finally, we come to you and me and our walk with the Lord today. What are you bringing the the mass, what are you offering to the lord? He is simply waiting for you to bring your meager gift so He can multiply it. What are you waiting for, start today, He is waiting to feed you.

Oh lord Help me to see every gift given from god in the same way. Amen.