Not Just Provide But Multiply

God provides in ways we often least expect, even in the smallest details of our lives. The miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fish, the only miracle recorded in all four Gospels, is far more than a story about feeding a crowd. It is a foreshadowing of the Eucharist and a vision of what the Church is called to be. Jesus took what little the disciples had, blessed it, broke it, and multiplied it beyond imagination. He calls us to do the same. We are invited to bring whatever we have to Him, no matter how small or insufficient it seems, and trust Him to use it for His glory. We are blessed, broken, and distributed into the world to carry His love and mercy to others. The miracle of the loaves and fish is still happening, and we are called to be part of it.

Transcript

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My brothers and sisters in the Lord, in the 1940s there was a woman by the name of Josephine Kunz. And Josephine and her husband were on hard times. Her husband lost his job with the textile industry. He worked part-time painting houses, which couldn't be done because of the weather at the time in the Northeast. And also their daughter, who was about two years old, was suffering from pneumonia. And in this period of time, the doctor gave Josephine some instructions for her daughter. The doctor said to her, for her daughter to recover fully, for the next two weeks, she needed to feed her daughter one hard-boiled egg each day. One egg each day for the next two weeks. Now there was a serious problem. Josephine and her husband couldn't afford one egg, much less enough eggs to supply two weeks. And so in a conversation she was having with her neighbor in the kitchen, her neighbor asked her a question. The neighbor asked, Have you ever thought about praying to God to give you an egg? Now, Josephine was a religious woman. They went to church every Sunday and she prayed. But she never really thought about asking God for an egg. She thought to herself, God has better things to do than to hear me whisper about an egg. But she was desperate. And so after her neighbor left, she got on her knees on the kitchen floor and she prayed. And she prayed like she never prayed before. And her only prayer was for God to send her an egg. Not long after, she heard some rustling coming from the bushes in the front of the house. When she looked out the living room picture window, she saw right there in the bushes there was a big fat red hen sitting right there. And then all of a sudden, as she watched, the hen laid one egg. And she was shocked. And so she went outside to see the hen and the egg. She was picking up the egg, and the hen was walking down the street. And after she gathered the egg, she went to look for the hen, and the hen was gone. Well, for the next two weeks, every single morning, she heard rustling in the bushes. And every single morning there was a big fat red hen that laid only one egg and disappeared in the distance. After the two weeks was over, her husband found a job, her daughter was recovered from the pneumonia, and the hen was never seen again. My friends, do you believe in miracles? That's not a rhetorical question. Do you believe in miracles? Do we believe, my brothers and sisters, that God cares for his people? Do we believe that God provides for his people? And if we really believe that, my dear friends, do we have that kind of faith, even if it means praying for an egg? In the gospel today, we see one of the most unique and one of the most important miracles that Jesus performs: the multiplication of the loaves and the fish. It is unique, my brothers and sisters, because it is the only miracle that is found in all four gospels. All four evangelists recount the multiplication of the loaves and the fish. In fact, it is so unique that Saint Matthew, whose gospel we heard proclaimed this morning, tells about the miracle not only here, but a few chapters later he tells it again with just some slightly different details. It was a very important miracle. And it's very important, my brothers and sisters, because we know that this particular miracle is a prefiguration, is a foreshadowing of what Jesus is going to do at the Last Supper. In fact, the actions of Jesus at the multiplications of the loaves and the fish are the same actions he takes at the Last Supper. When he takes the bread and he blesses it and he breaks it and he gives it to the disciples. He's doing the same thing here. It's a foreshadowing of the great gift that God is going to make of himself to his people. And he's going to give us his very self: body, blood, soul, and divinity. Remember before Jesus ascends and he gives the great commission to go out into all the world and make disciples, what is the last promise he makes? He says to them, I will be with you always, even until the end of the world. The great miracle, my dear friends, a foreshadowing that Jesus is going to give us his very self. And every time we gather around this altar, he gives us his very self. The altar of God's word, which is a living word, and the altar of God's body. And we receive Jesus. We are strengthened by Jesus. Because Jesus cares about us, he's concerned about us, he wants us to live as disciples, to be fully alive, fully beautiful, fully human, fully who God desires us and calls us to be. But sometimes, my dear friends, certainly we're not like Jesus. Because Jesus, my brothers and sisters, he moves outside of himself for each of us. Notice how the gospel began. The gospel began by saying Jesus received information. He received news that his cousin, John the Baptist, had been killed. He had been martyred. He had been murdered by King Harry. So he had been killed. He received this news. He's going off to pray, to be by himself, and any of us would say to ourselves, that's something I would do if I received that tragic news. Who could blame Jesus? But then what happens? He sees the people coming, he sees the hunger in them. He sees them following him. He sees that they're ill and sick among them. And he heals them. Even in the midst of receiving terrible news. Jesus doesn't say to the people, I don't have time for you right now. Jesus doesn't say, I need to take a personal day. Come back tomorrow. What does the evangelist write? He says his heart was moved with pity. It was moved with compassion. What does the word compassion mean? Compassion means to move out of ourselves for the other person. And so the Lord is moved with compassion because he sees the needs of the people. And the same thing he does every single time we gather around this altar, he sees our needs. We bring him our thanksgiving. We bring him our petitions. We bring him our hearts that sometimes are joyful but other times are battered and broken and beaten. And we bring them to this altar and he feeds us. He nourishes us. He uplifts us. He restores us. He heals us. He renews us. He transforms us. That's one part of this great story, this great miracle of the loaves and the fish. The prefiguration of it's going to happen at the Last Supper. And what still happens 2,000 years later. But there's a second important aspect of this miracle. And the second is this the miracle of the multiplication represents each and every one of us. It is a vision, my brothers and sisters, of the church. It is a vision of the people of God and who we are called to be as the people of God. Because all of us gather around the Lord's altar. All of us are fed. And after we are fed, we are sent forth. We are sent forth to feed others. We are sent forth to minister to others. We are sent forth to allow the grace of God to flow from us to others, to be an instrument of God's grace. It represents all of us. Because each and every one of us here, my brothers and sisters, we are blessed by God. We are the anointed of God. And even in our brokenness, and sometimes mostly in our brokenness, we can reach out and accompany others and walk with others. And we can do the distribution to bring God's word, to bring God's glory, to bring God's love, to bring God's mercy into the world, to be blessed, to be broken, and to be distributed, to be sent forth into the world in which we live. And many times we say, my dear friends, we're like the disciples. When they see 5,000 men, not counting the women and children, probably 12 to 15,000 people. We're not talking about a small group. We're talking about a huge crowd. And Jesus sees that they're hungry. And what did the disciples see? They see a lot of mouths and they see no food. And they say to Jesus, send them away. We don't have Psalms, we don't have Costco, we don't have taky outy. We don't have Uber Eats. We're in a deserted place. We have nothing to feed them. And what does Jesus say to the disciples? The same thing he says to us. What do you have? And they say, Well, we just have these five loaves and two fish, but what good is that? And Jesus says, Bring them to me. My friends, when we bring to Jesus whatever those five loaves and two fish are in our lives, he uses them for his glory and in service to his people. He multiplies them and he sends them forth. It's why, my brothers and sisters, at every single mass we have the offertory. We bring forth the bread and wine. It's why we have the collection baskets to give the Lord our five loaves and two fish. The collection is just not to pay the bill to Costco, it's not to pay Clico, it's so that we can continue the work and mission of Jesus. Do we give the Lord our five loaves and our two fish? And do we allow Him to use us as instruments of His grace so that we can go forth and minister to others? Because you see, my dear friends, every time a Mass is celebrated, every time a baby is baptized, every time the sick are anointed, every time a funeral is celebrated, every time a confession is heard, the miracle of the multiplication continues. Every time, my brothers and sisters, the rosary is prayed, every time we visit someone on their deathbed, every time we make an effort to visit someone who is homebound or is in a hospital or nursing home, the miracle of the multiplication continues. Every time we serve someone who is on hard times, every time that we're at a soup kitchen or we're at a homeless shelter or any place that the Lord has asked us to go, the miracle of the multiplication continues. And it continues through us because we are sent, we are distributed into the world to continue the mission of the Lord. In two weeks, my brothers and sisters, Archbishop Chechio has asked every parish in the Archdiocese to celebrate Welcome Home Sunday. And the challenge for all of us is to figure out who is that one person that the Lord is distributing me to, is sending me to, so that I can extend an invitation to welcome them home. So that I can extend an invitation to the so that they can experience God's love and mercy. And I can tell you one thing, my dear friends, most of us, if not everyone in this church, we don't have to look far. Maybe it's your spouse who needs the invitation. Maybe it's one of your children, your grandchildren, a sibling, a parent, a next-door neighbor, a co-worker. You don't need to go all the way to Covington to find them. We all have them right around us. Who is it, my brothers and sisters, that we need to invite? To extend the invitation so that they too can experience the love and mercy of Jesus. And not just extend the invitation like, oh, we have Mass on Sunday, it's Welcome Home Sunday. Here's a bulletin. I hope you come. We're supposed to accompany people. Why don't you come and join me? Sit next to me, join my family. After Mass, we're gonna go to lunch, we're gonna go to breakfast, whatever it is. Do we really care about people? Do we really care about the mission of Jesus? Do we really believe, my dear friends, that the Lord is calling us and sending us? Because we're blessed and we're broken, but we're called to be distributed to the world. So that people, my dear friends, can be fed by Jesus. Not by us. We're only instruments, conduits of God's grace, but so that people can be fed by us and led to ultimately be fed by Jesus. Because everything that we have and everything that we are comes from Him. My brothers and sisters, do you really believe that God cares? Do you really believe that God is still at work in the world? Do you really believe that miracles still happen every single day? And if you do, my friends, who is it that needs an invitation? Because as a church, we're called to be a missionary outpost. You want to read more about that? Read my column in the bulletin. What does it mean to be that missionary outpost? So the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and the fish may still continue even until today. My friends, do you really believe in miracles? Amen.