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Introduction: A Table Set for All
This weekend, the second Sunday after Pentecost, we celebrate worldwide a second solemnity – which marks our return to Ordinary Time: The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. At one time, this day was called Corpus Christi – Latin for the “Body of Christ.” However, in the most recent revision of the liturgy, the name for this day is expanded to be a more complex reflection of our Eucharistic theology.
In Luke’s Gospel for this Sunday, the feeding of the 5,000 (only counting men and not women nor children) is the only one of Jesus’ miracles to appear in all four Gospels. Luke is a careful writer for he places this miracle between Herod’s question, “Who is this about Jesus I hear such things?” and Peter’s response to Jesus’ question about who he thought Jesus was: “You are the Messiah of God.” In this way, Luke is highlighting Jesus’s divine identity.
This passage is also meant to remind us of two feedings in the Old Testament: the feeding of the Israelites in the desert and Elisha’s feeding of 100 people with twenty loaves (Kings 4:42-44). More importantly, this passage is connected to the institution of the Eucharist – for Jesus takes bread, looks up to heaven, blesses the bread, breaks it, and then gives it to the disciples. In using this exact language, Luke is emphasizing that the Eucharist is a Divine Feast – spiritual food for our souls. And that the table is set for all who come!
What goes through your mind and emotions as you approach this Divine Feast, the Eucharist?
Furthermore, this story of the feeding of the multitude points to a deeper lesson about unity in the Christian community – literally, the unity of the Body of Christ. Jesus is showing his disciples and the gathered people what this unity means: an orientation toward communal responsibility and the common good. When one is hungry, the community is divided. In feeding the crowd, Jesus is making a radical statement about the nature of our responsibility in caring for others.
Later, at the Last Supper, Jesus will acknowledge that his life is not his own – it is given to him by God to be poured out for others. Here he is reminding the disciples that their lives are similarly to be given in service of others.
How you do you envision the greater “Body of Christ?” Where do you see this wider Body of Christ – in our contemporary world?
Are you “feeding” others in need with your time, gifts, and treasures? Are you a Eucharistic person?
I would invite you to take time to read and ponder the words from the Gospel of Luke 9:11-17.
What word or words caught your attention?
What in this passage comforted/challenged you?
Where are the “leftover fragments” in your life? How am I using these often “wasted” gifts?
Further Reflections and Questions:
After the miracle has taken place, the question could be asked, “Who fed these people?” The answer, of course, is that God fed them. However, Jesus challenges the disciples to give the people something to eat, thus making them his partners in the miracle. Where do you see yourself as a partner in God’s work?
We are always tempted to believe, as the disciples did, that we have nothing to offer in the face of overwhelming needs in our world. Have you ever felt this way? How did you deal with those feelings?
Ponder: We never receive Communion alone. We receive the Eucharist as a faith community.
In the ancient world, the common meal of bread and wine created covenants and bound people together through the hospitality of share meals. This “binding” is also at the heart of the Eucharist. Do you see this “binding” in our parish Masses?
Deacon David
Deacon David Suley
St. Andrew Apostle Catholic Church
Silver Spring, Maryland
Published with Permission
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