TASTING THE FUTURE
The feeding of the five thousand in today’s Gospel is one of those anticipatory sharings in the heavenly banquet of the age to come.
We say this feeding is miraculous, and it was. A major part of the miracle is in the transformation of the Twelve. Our Lord did not personally feed the five thousand. He required his followers to get involved in alleviating hunger: ‘You give them something to eat,’ rather than leaving the crowd to fend for themselves, or resort to market economics. When they shared the food he had blessed, the miracle of the hospitality of God was multiplied throughout the crowd – extravagantly.
And so Our Lord gave his followers and the crowd a real taste of the future generosity of God in the heavenly banquet. But, it would not have happened had the inner groups of disciples not shared Jesus’ vision and got involved in what seemed to be an impossible task.
The Last Supper was the greatest anticipatory meal which Our Lord shared with his disciples. And, at Mass, we are eating and drinking the glorified humanity of our Risen Lord Jesus Christ: the life of the future.
We could pause for a moment to identify the myriad of hungers in this world and resolve to fulfil Our Lord's Command: ‘You give them something to eat’! so that Divine Generosity might transform human history.
© Fr Michael Tate; mtate@bigpond.com - https://www.liturgyhelp.com/calendar/date/2025Jun22/0/RefMiTa