Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

Imagine this.

Jesus is sitting on the grass on the side of the mountain.  He has His eyes closed.  He is hungry and tired.  Then, He opens His eyes and looks out at the multitude of people who have followed Him here.  He smiles.  He already knows what is coming.  These thousands of people are also hungry and tired.

His apostles are very worried.  They know that these people need food, however they don’t have the resources to supply them with it.  They come to Jesus and urge Him to send the crowds away so that they can find food in the villages.  Jesus smiles again.  “No, Philip,” He says.  “These people would faint from hunger before they could get very far.  Let’s feed them ourselves.”

Philip wonders how that is going to happen.  He shakes his head in disbelief as he looks at His Lord who is still sitting calmly and smiling.  Then, Andrew sees a young boy with a basket that has five loaves and two fishes.  He shrugs and brings the young boy with his basket to Jesus. “Lord, we have this little bit of food.  But look out there.  How can we feed so many with so little?”

Jesus rises and still smiling says, “Tell everyone to sit down in groups of 50 or so.  Then, give me those loaves and fishes.”

He blesses the food.  The Apostles serve it.  The people eat and are satisfied.  The leftovers are collected in 12 baskets.  And, one of the greatest miracles of the New Testament has just occurred.

This miracle was preparation for the more startling miracle of the Holy Eucharist.  Jesus would become our Bread to nourish our souls.  Jesus is the Bread of Life, the cause of our joy on this Laetare Sunday, our delight, always at our disposal to appease our hunger.  Jesus feeds us spiritually, of course, but He also doesn’t neglect our physical needs.  If we are tormented by hunger, we aren’t going to be able to apply ourselves to the things of the spirit.

Just as Jesus provided for the 5 thousand, we must be solicitous of the needs of others and provide as we can for those needs.  If a brother or sister is in want of daily food and we say, “”Go in Peace’. . .yet give them not those things that are necessary for the body, what shall it profit?” (Jas 2: 15-16)

Finally, there is no challenge we face, no difficulty that we must overcome, no complicated circumstance in our life for which God doesn’t have the solution.  Wherever we are today, He has seen it for all eternity.  We give him our small basket of practically nothing and He performs a miracle for us.  We have to give Him everything in our power, holding nothing back, and He sets a rich and abundant table for us

He will “give us this day our daily bread.”.