THURSDAY, March 12
Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. And all ate and were filled; and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men.
— Mark 6:41-44
As a child, I used to wonder, “If Jesus could perform miracles and God has power over everything, why would he just… feed people?” Why, I wondered, didn’t he overthrow the Roman Empire? Why wouldn’t he bless the ground so that there would be an abundance of food every day? When I delved deeper into the symbolism of this story, I began to understand the importance of this miraculous feeding of the five thousand. In the story, Jesus looks at the crowd and has compassion for them because he sees that they are like sheep without a shepherd. He wants the crowd to stay so he can teach them, but his disciples tell him they need to disperse the crowds and move on, because there is nothing to feed them. It would be better, they say, to allow all these people to go somewhere else and get food. Jesus says, “You give them something to eat.” Then they begin asking questions about logistics. Jesus solves the problem by dividing the five loaves and two fish into enough for everyone.
The COVID pandemic closed down the world in March 2020, only three months after I had been elected Superior. We had to shut down our retreat house and our guest ministry, and the parishes where we worked were closed indefinitely. Without our guest ministry income and our outreach to the church, I was seized by a deep terror that our Convent would not survive or worse, that our Sisters vulnerable to respiratory illnesses might die. Nearly every day, I prayed to God, “Please help us.” The parish where I served stepped in and provided us with donated food from local grocery stores. Our friends and associates dug deep into their pockets and donated twice their usual amount. They also helped us learn how to do ministry online and reach more people than ever before. With God’s protection, we survived. None of our Sisters were lost to COVID, and we had a miraculously generous amount of food and support.
There are many meanings to this miracle, but my current understanding is that it means God always supplies enough for everyone. It is only through greed, war and injustice that people are made to starve. “You give them something to eat” is God’s message to us. There is always enough. We just need to devise a system in which everyone has all they need, and people step in to help.
Reflect: Where have you seen examples of corrupt systems that cause poverty and hunger? How can you play a role in forming a more just system?
This Lenten Meditation can be found at Episcopal Relief and Development
