Mt 15,29-37 – Saint Francis Xavier, Presbyter – Memory
In today’s Gospel, Jesus goes up the mountain and is surrounded by crowds marked by every form of wound: crippled, blind, deaf, lame, sick. People seem to lay everything at his feet. It’s a very strong image: the pain that he doesn’t hide, but he surrenders. That’s where the miracle happens: “And he healed them.”
Before Christ we must not pretend; we can rest everything on Him. Healing is not always physicalbut it is always a reopening of the heart to hope. Then comes the hunger of the crowd. A simple, concrete, not abstract hunger. The disciples would like to dismiss them, but Jesus stops them from this temptation to wash their hands. Christ’s compassion is not an abstract feeling, it is an operational choice. And he takes the little there is, seven loaves and a few fish, and breaks them. This is how God does it: he starts from our little and multiplies it.
He doesn’t ask for what we don’t have, he asks for what we can offer. This Gospel serves as a backdrop of light to the liturgical memory of Saint Francis Xavier, an ardent missionary who crossed distant seas and lands to announce Christ to peoples who did not know him. He too, like Jesus on the mountain, looked at the crowds with compassion. He did not bring great human means, but a heart full of Christ. And God multiplied that little in an immense work of evangelization. Maybe the mission is nothing more than this: be available for Christ to pass through us. To be like those loaves in the hands of Jesus, which allow themselves to be broken to become food. It’s not about being strong, but offered. Not perfect, but once again delivered.
Saint Francis Xavier he let himself spend his last breath, and the world changed around him. Today’s Gospel invites us to do the same: hand over our little, our poverty, our tiredness, everything! so that Christ transforms them into nourishment for those who hunger for love and truth.
Wednesday 3 December 2025 – (St. Francis Xavier, Presbyter – Memory)
