🎧 [Listen to Homily: Audio]
📺 [Watch Mass: YouTube Video]
Seeing the Crowd and Seeing
the Person
1. Keeping Track in a Crowd
If you've
ever been in a large crowd, you know it can be challenging to keep track of
people and where we are. We try to keep track of our family members, our
friends, where we parked the car, or where we're supposed to meet afterward.
Someone once told me he almost lost his wallet in a large crowd, though
thankfully someone found it and returned it with everything still inside. I
wore out my voice this weekend at a family reunion after spending hours talking
with relatives I hadn't seen in quite a while—that's one reason I sound like
this today.
But there is
something even more important that can be difficult to keep track of in a
crowd.
We can lose
sight of the people around us.
Today's
Gospel is the familiar miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes.
We know how the story ends: everyone is fed, everyone is satisfied, and twelve
baskets of fragments are left over. But before the miracle begins, St. Matthew
tells us something very important. Jesus sees
the crowd, and His heart is moved with compassion.
The
disciples see a problem.
Jesus sees
people.
2. What Overwhelms Us Does Not Overwhelm Jesus
The
disciples have a practical solution. "Send the crowds away," they
say. Let them find food somewhere else.
Jesus
answers, "There is no need for them to go away. Give them some food
yourselves."
That
response is just as challenging today.
When one
person we know is struggling, we often know what to do. We can visit, make a
phone call, prepare a meal, offer encouragement, or simply listen.
But when we
hear about war, famine, poverty, natural disasters, families displaced from
their homes, or communities suffering in ways we can hardly imagine, the need
can seem so enormous that we don't know where to begin.
There is
almost an inverse relationship. Sometimes the greater the need becomes, the
harder it is for us to focus on it.
But what
overwhelms us does not overwhelm Jesus.
He sees the
crowd, yet He never loses sight of the individual person within it.
3. One Person in the Waiting Room
Many years
ago, my mother was scheduled for back surgery at a large hospital in New York City.
The surgery kept being delayed, hour after hour, and as a family we became
increasingly anxious. We simply wanted to know that everything would be all
right.
Finally, the
surgery took place, and later that evening the surgeon called with good news.
Everything had gone well.
A few
minutes later, a woman walked across the waiting room and came over to us.
She had
heard us speaking with the doctor. She said, "My husband was brought into
this hospital, and I don't know where he is. I don't know what's happening to
him. Can you help me find some information?"
We really
didn't know how to help her.
But she
changed our perspective.
Our own
worry had been real. Our concern had been genuine. But suddenly we realized
that we were not the only family carrying fear in that waiting room.
She reminded
us that every crowd is made up of individual people whom God loves.
I still
remember her, and I still pray for her from time to time.
4. God Invites Everyone—and Calls Each One
The first
reading from Isaiah begins with one of the most beautiful invitations in all of
Scripture:
"All
you who are thirsty, come to the water."
The
invitation is for everyone. But thirst is always experienced personally. God
calls the whole crowd, yet He speaks to each individual heart: "Come."
The Psalm
says, "The eyes of all look hopefully to you, and you give them their food
in due season."
God sees the
eyes of all, yet He also knows the hunger of each.
That is how
Jesus looks upon the crowd in today's Gospel.
As His
disciples, we are learning to see with His eyes.
We are
called to notice the person right in front of us—the lonely neighbor, the
struggling family member, the coworker carrying a hidden burden, the person
quietly waiting for someone to notice them.
At the same
time, we are not called to forget the larger crowd of people we may never meet
but who are never forgotten by God.
5. "What Do You Have?"
Jesus never
asks the disciples to solve every problem.
He simply
asks them to bring what they have.
Five loaves.
Two fish.
It seems like
almost nothing.
Yet placed
into the hands of Christ, it becomes more than enough.
The same
question comes to us.
"What
do you have?"
Perhaps it
is an hour of your time.
A phone
call.
A visit.
A prayer.
A donation.
Food for a
parish collection.
A word of
encouragement.
A
willingness to forgive.
None of
these may seem very large.
But the
Gospel reminds us that we are not called to do everything.
Neither are
we allowed to conclude that, because we cannot do everything, we can do
nothing.
Christ asks
only that we place our small offering into His hands.
6. Fed by Christ, Sent by Christ
The miracle
of the loaves also points us toward the Eucharist.
Jesus takes
the bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to the disciples. The disciples
then distribute it to the people.
Each Sunday
we receive that same Lord in the Eucharist.
Before
coming to the Lord's table, we ask Him to heal what is divided within us. Just
as we ordinarily hope to settle disagreements before sitting down together for
a family meal, we come to confession so that Christ may heal the divisions that
sin creates between ourselves and God and between ourselves and our
neighbor—even when complete reconciliation with another person may still take
time.
Then,
strengthened by His grace, we are sent into the world to make His compassion
visible in our words and actions.
7. The Love That Never Runs Out
St. Paul
reminds us today that neither hardship, nor distress, nor famine, nor
danger—indeed, nothing in all creation—can separate us from the love of Christ.
That is why
Jesus can look upon the crowd with such confidence.
That is why
we never lose hope.
And that is
why the Gospel ends, not with scarcity, but with abundance.
Everyone
eats.
Everyone is
satisfied.
And twelve
baskets are left over.
God's compassion
is never barely enough.
His mercy
overflows.
We may see
only five loaves and two fish.
Jesus sees
the beginning of a gift.
We may see
an anonymous crowd.
Jesus sees
every single person.
May He teach
us to see as He sees: to love the crowd without losing sight of the individual,
and to care for each individual without forgetting the needs of the wider
world.
