“[They] filled twelve hampers with scraps left over from the meal of five barley loaves.”

Real hunger is not when you don’t know where your next meal is coming from; it is when you don’t know whether there will be another meal at all. I have only known that sort of hunger once in my life. I never want to experience it again.

Whenever Jesus encounters people in the gospel, he responds to their deepest need - their greatest hunger. Today, in this gospel, it is their hunger for bread. And it is because they are so satisfied with the bread he gives that they want to make him King of their lives. And that is the way Jesus wants to feed each of us - to fill our own deepest needs.

Some years ago, I knew a young woman, a teacher, who had originally come from a poor country and whose dearest wish in life was to be married and to have a large family. However, her first problem was that she couldn’t find a good man. Apparently there is a widespread shortage of “good” men. There are lots of men around, but apparently not many “good” men. But, eventually, when she was 32, she found the right man. After only two years of courtship, they were married and settled down to live happily ever after.

But, after three years of marriage, she discovered that she could not have a child. It was a shattering blow for her. She had a long series of tests which were painful, unpleasant and expensive and which confirmed that she would never be able to have a child. She was so depressed that she had to stop work and go back to her home in her own country for a long holiday. There she was appalled and shocked by the number of homeless children in the streets, either abandoned by their parents or orphaned, often because their parents had died of AIDS. But it was not until a full year later that the penny dropped. And she and her husband returned permanently to her own country to found an orphanage. I heard from her recently. She wrote“I thank my God that he did not give me only one child; he gave me a whole orphanage.” At Tiberias, there were twelve baskets left over. God always gives not just enough, but much more. Sometimes when our ambitions are not fulfilled it is because they are not big enough for God.

Let us pray that we will open our mouths and our hearts and have the lord fill them.

Let us stand and profess our Faith in the Goodness of God.

Mount Street Jesuit Centre,
114 Mount Street,
London SW1K 3AH.
ENGLAND.
fatbaldnproud@yahoo.co.uk