The liturgy of the eighteenth Sunday is based on the following readings: Isaiah 55:1-3; Psalm 145; Romans 8:35, 37-39; Matthew 14:13-21.

The main theme in these readings is a conviction that it is God who can truly provide for what each man’s heart is searching for.

In the first reading, the prophet warns his people not to spend their money on what cannot nourish them and their wages on what fails to satisfy. 

He advises them to listen to God and go his way; keeping in mind his provident goodness.  Psalm 145 stresses this provident goodness of God, who feeds all of creation and "satisfies the desire of every living thing” ( Ps 145,16). The prophet’s words are close to what we experience today; that curious reality or feeling that we want more than we have or have had, which very often result in a conviction that we are being led by our wanting along a strange and perhaps unhealthy path.

In the Gospel, St. Matthew develops the above theme of God’s providence, telling of the miracle of the multiplication of bread. In this episode, Jesus fed five thousand people using five barley loaves and two fish only.

He begins by putting his disciples to the test; ordering them to feed the vast crowd who had spent the whole day listening to him and were evidently very hungry.

For the disciples, Jesus was asking them to do the impossible. But Jesus proceeded to do what they thought was impossible by taking the few they had; five barley loaves and two fish and, miraculously, through the hands of his disciples, distributes this food to the people.

St. Matthew observes that Jesus used the same gestures of taking the bread, blessing it, breaking it and giving it to the people, exactly as he did on the Last Supper.

From a different approach, St. Paul too speaks about the same dependence of the human spirit on God, just as we depend on food for bodily nourishment.

St Paul uses strong words when explaining the fact that the experience of God’s love is so great that nothing can replace it or overshadow it.

Not even by "anguish or distress, or persecution or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword” (Rom.8,35). St. Paul says that not even death itself can dim the light of God’s love in a man’s heart once he or she has attained it.

The doctrinal point stressed in our liturgy from the Old Testament as well as the New Testament is that God is food for his people. But in the New Testament as St Matthew observes the same gestures of Jesus as on the Last Supper, it is clear that more is being referred to than the satisfaction of physical hunger.

This miracle points to another type of hunger and another type of food: The hunger of the human spirit, the food that is God himself who is really present in the Eucharist.

To the contemporary Christians, the same liturgy reminds us as well of the necessity of our Eucharistic devotion.  This according to our catechism and the experience of many saints is a necessary part of Christian life: the contact with Jesus Christ in the Eucharistic presence.

It can strengthen our good habits, fortify our virtues, console those who suffer, and move each person to want to imitate Jesus Christ in his life, and, by his example, to be meek and humble of heart, and to search for God’s interests which can modify our own.

We are told that there is nothing as gentle and effective on the path to sanctity as the Eucharistic presence.

From a pastoral point of view, today it is becoming more evident than ever before, that we live a very busy cycle of work and short rest.

The horizon of our existence, our hopes and our lives play out within this busy cycle, often with much confusion.

As a result, the ideas about a greater spiritual plan, a mission, and a common purpose may sound strange to our ears and far removed from what we call the reality of our lives.

Unfortunately, this continues to put us in a curious situation: whether we chose to run from the facts, or pretend that all ends in frustration, we all need the courage to rediscover the real hunger within us.

This is what is implicit in Isaiah’s plea not to "spend money on what cannot nourish and your wages on what fails to satisfy” (Is.55,2).

Ends