The Challenge of the Unsatisfied

Simone Riva - For Christ, it seems little to have multiplied the loaves and fishes if those who follow him do not reckon with the boundless demand for life that they carry in their hearts.

We have heard this episode a thousand times, and for this reason, we may have already consigned it to the cellar of things already known. But let us try for a moment to identify ourselves with what happened that day.

Many people followed Jesus because they saw the signs he performed on the sick. Friends, relatives, or strangers who suddenly began to live again, free from all entanglements. Like a car with its engine running at full throttle that can finally start its race because someone took off the handbrake. Even those who had no infirmities to be healed of followed him because they saw another possible healing: that of the lack of meaning and taste for life. Not crowds of sick people in the flesh, but crowds of people in need of a serious life.

Jesus walks with his disciples. He crosses to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, goes up the mountain, and sits down. What about the crowds? What should we do with all those people who are there and have nothing to eat because they have been following him for a long time, not even noticing the passing of time?

The evangelist John reports a curious detail. Instead of panicking about the disproportion of resources to the number of people, Jesus takes advantage of the situation to "test" himself by asking, "Where shall we buy bread so that these people may have food? He does not miss the opportunity to lift them up. We can well imagine the faces of the disciples when confronted with this question. 

Philip dares to answer, "Two hundred denarii of bread is not enough, not even for each one to get a piece. As in, "We can't do anything with what we have." Andrew kicks it up a notch, "There is one boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what is that to so many people?" They, more than anyone else present, have seen miracles and signs, but they cannot imagine anything beyond their measure. Everything seems to be nothing in their eyes.

Without wasting time on explanations, Christ performed the miracle of multiplying the loaves and fishes that the boy had with him. The Gospel tells us that not only did they all eat, but twelve baskets of loaves and fishes were brought forward. We still seem to hear the silence of the disciples at the sight of what happened.

Does the story end like that? No. The story ends with Jesus’ “flight” into solitude because they wanted to make him king because of the miracle. Power isn’t denied to anyone when he does something for us. So the narrative presents us first with Jesus alone, then with the crowd‌ and finally alone. 

This development is interesting because, in a way, it describes the destiny of God’s measure in the world: solitude. Only he can provoke his own, risking that they won’t understand and will disappear. Only He is willing to take that risk to make those willing to follow Him experience the fullness of His measure. It is too little power to become King, too little even to have made more loaves and fish if those who follow Him don’t think about the constant need for life that they have in their hearts.

It’s this demand that he wants to be the interlocutor of; it is this demand that must always be awakened by the details of daily life, in which we experience, as Saint Paul writes in the second reading of today’s liturgy, that there is “one God and Father of all, who is above all, works through all and is present in all.
The author has not reviewed the translation. Published on “Ilsussidiario.net.” Download.