Memorial of Saints Cyril, Monk, and Methodius, Bishop
Our Gospel today features Jesus’ second miraculous feeding, this time of a group of 4,000 people. The occasion of this ministry is the Gentile area of the Decapolis. It closely parallels the feeding of the 5,000 in Galilee (Mark 6:35-44) with a few significant differences. Both accounts shine as a prefigurement of the Eucharistic meal and the messianic banquet in the age to come. Today, I’d like to focus on Jesus’ compassion and mercy and our abject need for him. May we always seek to satisfy our spiritual hunger in Christ and be a Eucharistic people who live in such a way as to draw others to him.
Jesus summons his disciples and says, “My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat.” That phrase, “moved with pity,” is better translated “I am moved with compassion.” The Greek part of speech here is from the word splagchnon, which is such an awesome word! It means to be moved in your gut, to feel viscerally, to be so overcome with compassion as to feel it bodily in your inward parts. Think about a time when you might have felt so afraid, or repulsed, or incredibly nervous that you felt it physically in your bowels. This is the kind of compassionate reaction Jesus had to the crowd’s hunger. It is a gut-wrenching emotion. It’s the same word Mark uses to describe Jesus’ reaction to the plight of the leper (1:41) and to the 5,000 who were like sheep without a shepherd (6:34). Jesus feels profound compassion for our hunger that shakes him to his core, be it physical or spiritual. Hang onto that thought for a moment.
Jesus continues, “If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will collapse on the way . . .” As I initially read that phrase, the word collapse jumped off the page. Just as significant lack of food makes a person collapse in bodily weakness, so does unsatisfied spiritual hunger wreck us. The word “collapse” here is also translated “faint,” or “grow weary.” The Greek term is translated elsewhere in the New Testament as “losing heart” or becoming weary and discouraged by the trials and challenges we face in Christian discipleship (Gal. 6:9, Heb 12:3, 5).
What keeps us from collapsing in our day to day lives, from growing discouraged as Christ followers when the going gets tough? It is Jesus himself! Just as he multiplied the seven loaves and fed 4,000 people with seven baskets leftover, so does he feed us with his body, blood, soul, and divinity at every Eucharist! Without the Eucharist, we too, would collapse on the way. Jesus is the Bread of Life. We hunger and thirst for him, whether we are conscious of it or not. Jesus feels compassion for our hunger – that same deep, visceral, gut-wrenching compassion that he experienced for the people of his day. From the depths of his compassion, Jesus offers himself to us, the Bread of Life, who alone can satisfy every hungry heart.
I invite you to pause for a moment and consider your own life. Have you recognized your abject need for Jesus? Do you hunger and thirst for him in the Eucharist? Are you aware of Eucharistic grace at work in your life; can you describe the fruit of that divine activity? Maybe you find yourself in a season where you feel like you’re collapsing on the way, growing faint or weary, discouraged or losing hope? How might reorienting yourself to the Sacraments make a difference in your life? Perhaps you are one who needs to return to the Sacraments.
Just as you and I have a profound and urgent need for Jesus, particularly in Word and Sacrament, so does everyone around us. Many people that we encounter every day in our families, workplaces, schools, neighborhoods – indeed everywhere we go – are collapsing on the way. We might ask ourselves, do we, like Jesus, feel splagchnon for them?! Are we deeply moved with compassion for those around us who are wayward and struggling, or do we default to apathy or criticism? Today, let us consider how yielding to the work of Eucharistic grace within us might transform us into beacons of light and hope. As people watch and observe our lives, may they see Jesus, the Bread of Life, the Light of the World, and may they be drawn to him and his Sacraments by our witness. Lord, have mercy on us and help us by your grace. Sts. Cyril and Methodius, pray for us.
I’ll see you in the Eucharist,
Elizabeth Wells