We, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf (1 Cor 10, 17)<\/i><\/p>\n
Wanting to be alone by themselves after a mission of preaching and healing, Jesus goes with his apostles to Bethsaida.\u00a0 But what is proposed does not materialize; people arrive.<\/p>\n
The uninvited do not bother Jesus.\u00a0 He welcomes them, leaving fellowship for fellowship.\u00a0 Soon the mission resumes.<\/p>\n
It is getting late, but it matters only to the Twelve.\u00a0 They remind Jesus that they are where there is nothing, and that it is better, therefore, for the crowd to leave.\u00a0 He does not brush aside the multitude\u2019s material need.\u00a0 He does not say what he said to the tempter who sought to make a conceited magician of the Messiah, namely, \u201cOne does not live by bread alone.\u201d\u00a0 This time he answers, \u201cGive them some food yourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is thus indicated that fellowship with him means solidarity.\u00a0 Without it, the hungry do not attain either corporal or spiritual satisfaction.\u00a0 Human wholeness demands such fellowship.\u00a0 According to St. Paul, it is due to lack of communion and loving solidarity that, among the Corinthians, many \u201care ill and infirm, and a considerable number are dying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hence, the members of the body of Christ have the same concern for one another.\u00a0 They are not allowed to live by \u201cEvery man for himself.\u201d\u00a0 Among them, no one is abandoned or made to feel ashamed, not even\u2014or better, not especially\u2014the least, the most useless, the poorest.\u00a0 One\u2019s deprivation is everybody\u2019s deprivation; if one is satisfied, everybody is satisfied.\u00a0 No one goes ahead with his own supper, letting others go hungry.\u00a0 They all wait for one another.\u00a0 They share what they have.\u00a0 Even the few things one hands over will be multiplied by Jesus more than a thousand times, so that all will have their fill and there will be left-over.<\/p>\n
And when one is completely empty\u2014after giving all, in imitation of the one who emptied and sacrificed himself on the cross, and whose priesthood was prefigured by Melchizedek\u2019s\u2014then one is full, so that one\u2019s surplus may supply others\u2019 needs.\u00a0 Those who are so left with nothing may well say what St. Vincent de Paul said.\u00a0 Informed that there was no money left to help the poor, he replied to the one who had broken the news to him:\u00a0 \u201cThat is good news! \u00a0Blessed be God! \u00a0Right timing!\u00a0 Now we can show we trust in God\u201d (Abelly 3, III, 13; Thomas F. McKenna, C.M., Praying with Vincent de Paul<\/i>).<\/p>\n
As St. Vincent\u2019s experience shows, Providence does not disappoint.\u00a0 We are even given a share in Jesus\u2019 inventive love, from which the Eucharist emanates (Coste XI, 142-148), so that we may transcend what we have proposed and be disposed to leave the sacrament of the altar for the sacrament of the hungry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"