Mc 6,34-44 – Feria proper of January 8th
“When he disembarked, he saw a large crowd and was moved by them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things.” What precedes the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes is this note that the Gospel makes. Jesus doesn’t do miracles to amazebut the deep root of some signs is entirely hidden in his compassion. It is probably the same one that proves to us that we are in the same conditions as the Gospel crowd.
In fact, how many times do we live our lives as if we were alone in the world, as if we had no one capable of giving us direction, a good word, encouragement, teaching. If anyone were to ask us what the true meaning of the Church is, it is all hidden in the compassion of Jesus. The Church should be the extension of this compassion, the visible sign of a God who comes close, who becomes manwhich takes people’s real lives seriously, and does something for them. And in this doing something there is not simply a trade in words, but giving a concrete answer, exactly as concrete as the bread and fish that Jesus multiplies to feed these people. The problem is not the sensational of this miracle, but what symbolic hidden in it.
The Gospel seems to want to tell us today that faith does not simply serve to nourish an abstract part of us, but to give us the most essential thing we need to be able to live our life. Faith is concreteness, not emptiness. Many are convinced that spirituality is something that opposes reality, but Jesus teaches exactly the opposite: there is nothing more concrete than the spiritual, because when it is true, it never turns the other way when faced with the concrete needs of people’s lives. Jesus doesn’t sell dreamsbut it gives every man and every woman the concreteness of a life that they need. This is why those who say “I don’t have time for faith” make me smile, because for a Christian this would sound a bit like this: “I don’t have time to live”.
