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Anyone going to the restaurant will generally be attentive to two things: the quality of the service and the quality of the food. Although the latter is what matters most, the former, too, is part of what makes dining out an enjoyable experience.
When Jesus invites you to His table, He provides both delicious food and perfect service. Both can be described with the same word: they are divine. Jesus’ food and Jesus’ service are divine, and this is not an overstatement on our side – as when we say that we “adore” chocolate, meaning only that we are extremely fond of it. Jesus’ food is divine, because He really gives Himself under the humble appearances of bread and wine. His service, too, is divine, because He is the Servant of God who gives Himself up by taking on the humble service of God which is our salvation.
Today’s gospel puts before our eyes Jesus in the very act of providing food to a crowd. Let us look at Him. He is the perfect Host. He recognises your need before you have expressed it. He cares for it Himself. First, He finds out what is available. Then He invites you to take a comfortable seat. Once all are in place, He breaks the bread, but before doing this, He begins with a solemn blessing. He looks up to heaven – as the priest does before the Consecration. He says a prayer of thanksgiving to the Father. Jesus says Thank You because He receives the food He is going to give to the crowds from His Father in heaven. How could he do otherwise? Jesus receives Himself and every circumstance of His life from His Father. Therefore the bread He asks the disciples to distribute to the crowd comes from the Father – just as Jesus Himself comes from the Father.
The bread given in abundance speaks of the Father’s inexhaustible generosity. Jesus is the witness to this generosity. He proclaims to the world the care of the Father for all His children. Jesus includes us all in the love and the life which He Himself receives from His Father. And by giving us this bread, Jesus gives Himself. The generosity of the Father is echoed in the compassion of the Son who sees the crowd, take pity on them, heals the sick and feeds them with bread and with teaching, with care and attention, with humble service and divine compassion.
See, now they are eating and are satisfied. They have more than enough. They have plenty. They are really nourished with solid and good food. The bread they eat is not a delicacy for the rich, but sustenance for the poor. This bread gives you what you need to live. It is nourishment for the body and love for the heart. This bread is indeed divine: because of the miracle of so much food for so many people given by a single man; but mainly because of the sign of God the Father feeding His children and God the Son serving God and men with humble love.
It seems to me that we are reminded of the scene at Emmaus when the disciples recognised the risen Lord “in the breaking of the bread” (Lk 24:35). There is a quality of service and of food which is Jesus’ exclusive signature. We have it under the eyes of our faith each time we are at Mass. The priest, who represents Christ and through whom Christ is acting, breaks the bread and blesses it, and it becomes the Eucharistic bread – the Bread of Life that is Jesus Himself, the Son of the Father sent in the world to save the world, to nourish it with divine life. The deacon at the priest’s side reminds us that Christ is the powerful God who chose to serve us rather than to lord over us. The deacon is the sign of the presence among us of Christ as the humble Servant of the Lord and of His brothers and sisters.
We, too, hear Jesus’ order to the disciples: “You give them something to eat”. In Jesus and with Jesus, we, too, have to learn how to serve and to feed our brethren out of humble love. We, too, must become food for our brothers and sisters, and for the world. For it is not enough to be good, kind and gentle. Loves wants more. We are called to be consumed by love – to be totally given in humble service and joyful love; not usually in a dramatic or spectacular way, though, just day by day, bit by bit.