“FIVE LOAVES AND TWO FISH”

Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ

Gn 14: 18 – 20 / Ps 110 / 1 Cor 11: 23 – 26 / Lk 9: 11b – 17

We are living today in a “throw-away culture.”

When things, and even people, are no longer useful to us, we tend to “throw” them away. For example, if your cellphone is already outdated, then, you buy the latest one. If the baby is conceived out of “tilaw – tilaw lang,” then, you avail of abortion. If your wife has increased in size, then, you look at someone who is slim. If your boy/girlfriend is slowly becoming ugly each day for whatever reason, then, you start looking for a replacement. We choose the strong and useful because they increase production and efficiency. This is what it means to say that we are living today in a “throw-away culture.”

However, the opposite happened in our Gospel story today.

In the face of hunger, Jesus picked up the seemingly “useless” five loaves and two fish. After blessing them, he broke them and gave them to everyone around. They were all satisfied. In fact, there was even a surplus of twelve baskets! Looking at the story lovingly, we see that “abundance is found not in the purchasing power which is money, but in the power of the Lord.”

Today, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of the Lord, the Eucharist! In our second reading today, Paul reminds us that for the Lord to be remembered, for his selfless love to be experienced until today, Jesus instituted the Eucharist.

In the Eucharist, we see the priest, acting in the person of Christ, picking up the ordinary bread and wine. After offering these humble gifts to the Father, through the power of the Spirit, we receive not just an ordinary bread and wine but the most holy body and blood of Christ. What an experience of abundance! Indeed, “abundance is found not in the power to purchase with money, but in the power of the Lord.”

My dear friends, the Church continues to exist and it remains to be relevant until today not because of the influence of bishops, priests, and lay faithful but because of the Eucharist. Why the Eucharist? Because through it, we receive Jesus who is always “the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.” The Church’s abundance, as it is clearly seen, comes from our daily celebration of the Eucharist; it flows from our daily celebration of the real presence of Christ.

We therefore have a challenge: and that is to allow God to pick up our lives, allowing Him to “bless and break” us so that after having been changed by the Lord, we become gifts for others, we become a source of abundance for those who are living in scarcity. If we want an abundance of life, then, we allow him in humility - as Carrie Underwood puts it - to “take the wheel ‘cause I can’t do it on my own.” 

After experiencing many deaths in the family even to the point of suffering a mild brain damage, Susan Boyle rose to popularity after winning the Britain’s Got Talent competition. She was ridiculed for her looks, but when she sang Les Miserables’ “I Dreamed a Dream,” it immediately earned 10 million views in the first round of the competition. As you can see, Susan Boyle did not allow herself to be “thrown away” by her life’s unfortunate circumstances. Rather, she allowed herself to be picked up by her singing talent which eventually led her into “abundance.”

With the Eucharist, as the source and summit of our Christian life, let us not allow ourselves to be thrown away by the challenges and difficulties of life. Rather, let us allow God to pick us up so that we too can experience an abundance of life, not because of our own making but because of the Lord’s power of love.  Amen.