My Dear People,

Although the text is not explicit, we are probably correct to assume crowds were made up of the common and poor people in the land rather than the wealthy elite. We hear themes from Isaiah 55 explaining: Jesus is providing a free, satisfying meal to the hungry and thirsty poor.

But the language Matthew implies is intended to remind us of another incident in Jesus’s ministry where He also takes loaves, blesses, breaks and gives them to the Disciples. Of course, this is language from the narrative of the Institution of the Eucharist (Matt 26:26), which is indeed the covenant meal promised by Isaiah 55. Specifically, it is a meal which extends the covenant of the Son of David to those who participate in it.

This account in Matthew stresses Jesus’s mission to restore the people of Israel, to whom the promise of a New Covenant was given by Jeremiah (Jer. 31:31-34). The point of the twelve baskets left over is a sign God is coming to collect the scattered people of the Twelve Tribes. They are to be gathered up from all the places where they had been scattered because of various wars and exiles; gathered and returned back into the kingdom of David, reconstituted around the Twelve Apostles—the twelve new patriarchs of the spiritual restoration of Israel.

In the next chapter (Matt 15: 29-39) Matthew will speak of a different feeding miracle Jesus performed that took place in Galilee and foreshadowed the Gospel intended for the Gentiles. There, four thousand will be fed (possibly for the four-cardinal direction of the compass) and seven baskets will be left over (a covenant number and perhaps related to the traditional seventy Gentile nations in Israelite ethnography). But here, the focus is on the restoration of Israel.

The Feeding of the Five Thousand in Matthew, as in the other Gospels, is an anticipation, foreshadowing the Eucharist—the meal which alone truly satisfies and “answers all our needs,” as sung in the psalm. It is the meal by which we enter the Davidic covenant, receiving the gift of Divine sonship and kingship over the earth, (as Isaiah predicted). Out of His loving concern to provide this meal for us, Jesus

endured anguish, distress, persecution, nakedness, peril and ultimately, death. In turn, this meal is one of the primary ways He stays with us and loves us as we suffer our own anguish, distress, persecutions etc.

This aspect of the Eucharist was foreshadowed in the Old Covenant by the “Bread of the Presence” (Exodus 25:30), fresh loaves of bread continually set out in the Holy Place to represent God’s presence with his people.

As we celebrate this Mass, let us thank Jesus for remaining with us in the Eucharist as we journey through this valley of tears and pray for those who—because of illness, imprisonment, or other impediments—lack the comfort of the tangible sacrament and must rely on the spiritual indwelling of Jesus in their souls alone.

[Source: Reflections on the Sunday Mass Readings for year A by Dr. John Bergdsma]

Yours in Christ, 

Fr. Vincent Clemente