18th Sunday in Ordinary Time (year C)  [3 August 2025]

May God bless us and the Virgin protect us. In the midst of the holiday season, the Word of God challenges us to give true meaning to life.

*First Reading from the Book of Ecclesiastes (1:2; 2:21-23)

 When reading the book of Qohelet (Qohelet means 'one who calls' or 'the teacher who speaks before the assembly'), also known as Ecclesiastes, one might think that the author is a philosopher; instead, he is a preacher and one of the most fascinating and uncomfortable personalities of biblical wisdom. It is true that his book is classified among the 'wisdom books', but the biblical books known as wisdom books are not philosophical essays in the manner of the pagans or agnostics. They are first and foremost books written by believers for believers; in a sense, they are catechisms. 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity': these are the first words of the book of Qohelet, and perhaps also what best sums it up. 'Vanity' literally translated would be 'breath of breath', something evanescent, and who can boast of holding a breath between their fingers? Another similar expression, very dear to the author, is 'running after the wind' (1:14). In other words, everything to which we devote our thoughts, dreams, energies, activities and time is ephemeral, temporary, fleeting. Everything, except one thing. What is it? The author keeps the mystery alive and only at the end of the book does he reveal that the only important thing in the world is the search for God. In the end, we understand that this is not a disillusioned philosophical meditation, but a vigorous preaching in a veiled form. In the meantime, he describes in a thousand ways the many human activities as futile efforts, a chasing after the wind to grasp a breath between one's fingers. To better argue his point, he has King Solomon himself speak as a man of desires and power, crowned with glory, but a glory that had no future. In fact, several phases mark his life: before becoming king, we know nothing about him except his thirst for power; as king, he was initially admirable for his wisdom and humility, but in the end he fell into idolatry and became a slave to his love of wealth. Qohelet has Solomon speak as if he were taking stock of his reign: a reign of power and wealth (Jesus will say of him: 'Solomon in all his glory'). He had wisdom and sought the great works that fascinate the powerful and wise of the time; all the pleasures of life, and in the end, the failure of his kingdom. With Rehoboam, his son, incapable of wise politics, the kingdom was divided, and worse still, idolatry regained the upper hand and in a few years Solomon's glory vanished. What we read today refers to him: "He who has worked with wisdom and knowledge will leave it to another who has not worked for it" (2:21). Rehoboam, his son and successor to the throne of Jerusalem, seriously lacked wisdom, and from there arose the schism that divided David's kingdom forever. In light of this experience, Qohelet affirms: "All is vanity." We read the same thing in Psalm 103: 'Man: his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field: a breath of wind, and he is no more' (15-16).  In Qohelet there is a true language of faith: God alone knows all mysteries, and every search for happiness outside of Him is vain because only He possesses the keys to true wisdom. Ultimately, even if we do not understand all the mysteries of existence, we know that everything is a gift from God. Those who trust in God will never be disappointed, and wisdom consists in abandoning oneself to God and observing His commandments is the only way to happiness: "Whoever keeps the commandment will know no evil." (Qo 8:5).  In the end, true wisdom is the humility of living life as a gift from God: "Every man who eats, drinks and enjoys well-being in all his labour: it is a gift from God. (Qo 3:13). 

*Responsorial Psalm 89/90 (3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14-17)

The psalm takes us to the context of a ceremony of supplication for forgiveness at the Temple in Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile: the prayer "Return, Lord, how long? Have mercy on your servants" (v. 13) is typical of a penitential liturgy.  This psalm is therefore a prayer asking for conversion: 'Teach us to count our days, that we may gain a wise heart' (v. 12). Conversion consists in living according to God's wisdom in order to know the true measure of our days. It is no coincidence that this psalm is offered to us as an echo of the first reading, from the book of Qohelet, a meditation on true wisdom, while the psalm offers a splendid definition of wisdom as the true measure of our days, a healthy lucidity about our condition as human beings. Born without knowing why and destined to die without even being able to foresee when: this is our destiny, and this is the meaning of the first verses we have read: You turn man back to dust when you say, 'Return, O children of men!' (v.3), that is, return to the earth from which I have drawn you. This does not create sadness but serenity because our misery rests on the greatness and stability of God: 'A thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, like a watch in the night' (v. 4). God gives us security because He wants only our good. However, trouble arises when we lose clarity about our misery, as chapters 2 and 3 of Genesis clearly illustrate, recounting the error of Adam, a symbolic character whose behaviour is considered a model of what not to do. "Adam did this or that" does not describe a hypothetical first man, but a type of behaviour, and in this light, this psalm is in harmony with the first reading, where Qohelet has Solomon, the wise king, speak at the beginning, but then seduced by luxury, power, and women who made him an idolater. In the second part of his reign, he behaved like Adam, who turned away from God's wisdom. This psalm invites us to rediscover the wisdom and humility of the young Solomon, because true wisdom is the awareness of man's smallness, which is never humiliating: a trusting, filial smallness. The conclusion is splendid: 'establish the work of our hands' (v. 17), which shows the cooperation between God and man: man works, God gives solidity and meaning to human work.

*Second Reading from the Letter of Saint Paul the Apostle to the Colossians (3:1-5, 9-11)

Paul first makes a distinction between "things above" and "things on earth", two different ways of living: behaviours inspired by the Holy Spirit and those that are not. "Things above" are kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, mutual forgiveness, living according to the Spirit, and this is the behaviour of the baptised. "Things on earth" are debauchery, impurity, unbridled passion, greed, covetousness, behaviour not inspired by the Spirit. Paul establishes the link between baptism and the way of life: "if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above" (v. 1). He says "you have been raised," but then he says "you have died" (v. 2), and the words do not have the same meaning for him as they do for us. For Paul, from the resurrection of Christ onwards, nothing is as it was before. To be risen means precisely to be dead to the world and born to a life according to the Spirit, what he calls the realities above. The Christian is a "transformed person who lives in the manner of Christ," and Paul calls him "the new man." He does not despise "the things of the earth"; on the contrary, he will say shortly afterwards: "Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God through him" (3:17). It is not, therefore, a question of living a different life from the ordinary one, but of living it differently: not rejecting this world, but living it already as a seed of the Kingdom, where all men are brothers, as he explains in his letter to the Galatians (3:26-28) and repeats at the end of this Sunday's passage from the letter to the Colossians: "There is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all." The community of Colossae probably had the same problems as the Galatians and, in particular, the great question that agitated the early Christian communities, namely whether non-Jews who became Christians should take on Jewish practices: dietary rules, ritual ablutions, and above all circumcision. There were circumcised Christians and uncircumcised Christians, and some Jews insisted on circumcision. The answer to the Galatians and Colossians was the same: baptism makes everyone brothers and sisters, and all forms of exclusion are outdated; what matters is being a disciple of Christ. 

NOTE. Some exegetes believe that this letter attributed to Paul was not actually written by him; Paul, in fact, never visited Colossae: it was Epaphras, one of his disciples, who founded that community. According to a very common practice in the first century (called pseudepigraphy), it is hypothesised (but this is only a hypothesis) that a disciple very close to Paul's thinking addressed the Colossians under the authority of the apostle's name because the moment was serious. If this hypothesis is correct, it is not surprising to find in this writing phrases taken literally from Paul and others that show how theological reflection continued to develop in Christian communities. Jesus had said, 'The Spirit will guide you to the whole truth.' And in previous Sundays, we have already seen theological developments that are not yet found in Paul's own writings.

*From the Gospel according to Luke (12:13-21)

Jesus' response seems abrupt: "Who made me your judge or mediator?" However, as a good teacher, Jesus takes the opportunity to draw a lesson that he explains well with this parable. A man who has become rich through business is thinking about how best to enjoy his wealth; he thinks about demolishing his warehouses and building bigger ones to store all his grain and goods, and then he says to himself: 'My soul, you have many goods stored up for many years; rest, eat, drink and be merry' (v. 19). Unfortunately, he has forgotten that his life does not depend on him, and in fact he dies that very night. He thinks he is rich, but true wealth is not what he imagines. To better understand Jesus' teaching, we need to remember what he said earlier: "Be careful and keep away from all greed, because even if someone has an abundance, his life does not depend on what he has" (v. 13) and, even though it is not in this Sunday's liturgical reading, he concludes: "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing' (Lk 12:22-23). Jesus' teaching is not new; it takes up themes already familiar in the Old Testament. Ben Sira said that those who become rich do not know how long they have to live, then they will leave their possessions to others and die (cf. Sir 11:18-19); and in this Sunday's first reading, Qohelet offered similar reflections: "What profit does a man gain from all his toil and from the cares of his heart, with which he toils under the sun?" (Qo 2:22), returning several times to the same theme (cf. Qo 5:9...15). The prophet Isaiah is very incisive in accusing the people of Jerusalem of being dazed by pleasures instead of listening to God's call to conversion (cf. Is 22:13), and the book of Job repeats: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there" (Job 1:21), a phrase still recited today in Israel at every funeral. All these phrases sound like reminders of the reality of life. Jesus denounces senseless behaviour: "Fool! This very night your life will be demanded of you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?" (v. 20) and the parable ends: "So is the one who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich in God." This implies two things: Never forget that riches come from God and belong to him because he entrusts them to us to put them at the service of the Kingdom of God. Life is short, but precisely for this reason, let us hurry to put it to good use! Jesus responds sharply to the man asking for his inheritance: that man has his priorities wrong because the most precious inheritance is the faith we have received from our fathers. And every time Jesus responds sharply (to his mother at Cana (Jn 2:4) and to Peter in Caesarea (Mt 16:23), it is because his mission is at stake.

+ Giovanni D'Ercole

(Mt 14:13-21)

Jesus wants that contributions, resources and abilities make synergy; that they offer themselves in service and come unite for the life of multitudes (vv.13-15.19).

The Eucharistic gesture - “breaking the existence” - says: new heavens and earth do not correspond to the world in which everyone hastens to reap for himself or his circle, in order to grab the maximum of resources.

Even the Apostles - called by Jesus and still at a safe distance from Him - are not the owners of the Bread, but those who must feed everyone (v.16), to create abundance where it’s not.

They must share, not command. And, in order to avoid impoverishment and damage to happiness, they must place themselves in a logic of overcoming.

The Son reflects God’s plan in compassion for the crowds in need of everything. Yet his solution does not fly over us - simply by wiping tears or erasing humiliations.

He invites us to use what we have, although it may seem ridiculous. But He teaches that shifting energies creates prodigious results.

Thus we respond in Christ to the great problems of the world: recovering the condition of ‘viator’ man - being in passing - and sharing goods.

Our real nakedness, the vicissitudes and experience of many brothers, different ones, are resources not to be evaluated with mistrust.

And the Lord disagrees with the idea that each gets off on his own (v.15).

He imposes on his intimates that «the crowds» (plurals) lie down in an atmosphere of abundance (v.19) as did the gentlemen and free people at solemn banquets.

He wants and insists that it’s first of all the disciples to serve (v.19), not other slaves.

And perhaps the most astounding detail is that to none of those present imposes preventive gestures of purification, as was customary in selective religiosity.

Before the meal it postulated the ritual ablution: a ceremony that emphasized a sacral detachment between pure and impure.

The only task of the disciples is to distribute Food to be shredded, sifted and assimilated personally, to build a new world.

In order to present ourselves before God, in religion we have a long rigmarole of fulfilments to observe, which sometimes normalise us.

On the journey of Faith, it is the gratuitous Encounter with the Lord that makes us grow and complete, making each one perfect and unconditionally pure.

In this, extracting authentic Pearls; just from our eccentricities character - those that are detached from the millimeter manners.

His Kingdom? Reign of invited and brothers, also disagree. No master or ruler - even if quicker and more able to manage himself.

The Eucharist thus remains an Appeal to real Conviviality [of differences as they are] and an evergreen Call not to be satisfied with individual devotions or with a harmonisable but empty spirituality.

To internalize and live the message:

How does the Eucharistic gesture speak to you of the Revolution of Tenderness, and of your Call by Name through the Church?

 [Monday 18th wk. in O.T.  August 4, 2025]

Multiplying by dividing

(Mt 14:13-21)

«Man is a limited being who is himself limitless» (Fratelli Tutti [Brethren All] n.150).

In our hearts we have a great longing for fulfilment and Happiness. The Father has introduced it, He Himself satisfies it - but He wants us to be associated with His work - inside and outside.

The Son reflects God's design in compassion for the crowds in need of everything and - despite the plethora of teachers and experts - lacking any authentic teaching (cf. Mt 9:36).

His solution is very different from that of all 'spiritual' guides, because he does not overlook us with an indirect paternalism (cf. Mt 14:16) that wipes away tears, heals wounds, erases humiliations.

It invites us to make use of what we are and have, even though it may seem ridiculous. But it teaches in no uncertain terms that by shifting energies we achieve prodigious results.

This is how we respond in Christ to the world's great problems: by recovering the condition of the man viator - a being of passage, his essential mark - and sharing goods; not letting everyone make do (v.15).

Our real nakedness, the vicissitudes and the experience of our many brothers and sisters, who are different, are resources not to be evaluated with distrust, "as dangerous competitors or enemies" of our fulfilment (FT no.151).

Not only will the little we bring be enough to satiate us: it will advance for others and with identical fullness of truth, human, epochal [v.17: the particular passage insists on the well-known Semitic symbolism of the number "seven"].

In Christ, everyone can inaugurate a new Time, and Salvation is already at hand, because people gather spontaneously around Him, coming as they are, with the burden of so many different needs.

The new people of God are not a crowd of chosen and pure people. Everyone brings with them problems, which the Lord heals - but healing not with proxy measures (v.16), as if from above or from without.

In short: another world is possible, but through breaking one's own (even miserable) bread and companion (vv.17-19).

An authentic solution, if one brings it out from within, and by standing in the middle - not in front, not at the top (v.15c).

The place of God's revelation was supposed to be the place of lightning, on a "mountain" smoking like a furnace (Ex 19:18)... but finally even Elijah's violent zeal had to recant (1 Kings 19:12).

Even to the pagans, the Son reveals a Father who does not simply erase infirmities (v.14): he makes them understood as a place that is preparing a personal development, and that of the Community.

He imagined that in the time of the Messiah, the lame, the deaf and the blind would disappear (Is 35:5ff.). Golden age: everything at the top, no abyss.

In Jesus - distributed Bread - an unusual fullness of time is manifested, apparently nebulous and fragile, but real and able to reboot everyone, and relationships.

The Spirit of God acts not by descending like lightning from on high, but by activating in us capacities that appear intangible, yet are capable of regrouping our dispersed being, classified as insubstantial - involving the everyday summary - and re-evaluating it.

The Incarnation reweaves our hearts, in dignity and promotion; it truly unfolds, because it not only drags obstacles away: it rests on them and does not erase them at all: thus it overpowers them but transmutes them - posing new life.

Lymph that draws juice and sprouts Flowers from the one muddy, fertile soil, and communicates them. Solidarity to which all are invited, not just those deemed to be in a state of 'perfection' and compactness.

Our shortcomings make us attentive, and unique. They are not to be despised, but taken up, placed in the Son's hands and energised (v.18).

Falls themselves can be a valuable sign: in Christ, they are no longer reductive humiliations, but rather path markers. Perhaps we are not making the best use and investment of our resources.

Thus, collapses can quickly turn into rises - different, not packaged - and a search for total completion in Communion.

Therefore, in the ideal of realising the Vocation and sensing the type of contribution to be made, nothing is better than a living environment that does not clip the wings: a lively fraternity in the exchange of resources, and coexistence.

Not so much to dampen the jolts, but so that we are enabled to build stores of wisdom not calibrated by nomenclature - which everyone can draw on, even those who are different and far from us.

If a shortcoming is found here too, it will be to teach us to be present in the world in (perhaps) other and further directions, or to bring out mission and creative maturity - not to remain fixated on partiality and minutiae.The allusion to the seven foods (multiplied because they are divided) supports the quotations regarding the malleable magma of biblical icons, such as those of Moses and Elijah: figures from the five Books of the Pentateuch [the basic Loaves], plus the two sections of Prophets and Writings [which act as 'companions'].

The first "five" are the essential fullness of food and wisdom for the soul, which is called to proceed beyond the surrounding hedges, breaking through the embankments of the boundary-subjugated mentality.

It is the basic nourishment of the human-divine spirit, to which, however, is added a young and fresh companion food, which precisely involves us (v.17.19).

[As St Augustine said: "The Word of God that is daily explained to you and in a certain sense 'broken' is also daily Bread" (Sermo 58, IV: PL 38, 395). Complete food: basic food and 'companion' - historical and ideal, in code and in deed].

We become in Christ as an actualised and propulsive corpus of sensitive witnesses (and Scriptures!); admittedly reduced, not yet established and lacking in heroic phenomena, but accentuatedly sapiential and practical.

Announcers and sharers without clamorous proclamations of self-sufficiency, never enclosed within archaic fences - always in the making - therefore able to perceive unknown tracks.

And to break the Bread... that is, to be active, to go further, to share the little - to nourish, to overflow (multiplying the listening and the action of God) and to make even the desperate regain esteem.

We are children: like few and little fish (vv.17.19), who do not wallow in competitions that make life toxic - rather: called in the first person to write a singular, empathic and sacred Word-event.

Infants in the Lord, we swim in this different Water - sometimes perhaps outwardly veiled or muddy and murky; finally made transparent if only because it is yielding, compassionate and benevolent.

The old exclusive puddle of religion that does not dare the risk of Faith (v.13) would not have helped us to assimilate the proposal of Jesus the Messiah, Son of God, Saviour - acrostic of the Greek word "Ichtys" (fish: vv.17.19 diminutive).

He is the Father's Initiative-Response, support in the (unethereal) journey in search of the Hope of the poor - of all of us destitute people waiting.

It seems strange, for those of us who have grown accustomed to it: the working Faith has as its emblem the fractional Eucharist, a revolution of sacredness.

Indeed, the purpose of evangelisation is to participate in and emancipate the complete being from all that threatens it, not only in its extreme limitation: also in its everyday action - to the point of seeking communion of goods.

The prodigy is placed after the rejection in Nazareth (Mt 13:53-57), Herod's ambiguous and superstitious questioning (vv.1-2), and the execution of the Baptist (vv.3-12).

In short, the Source and Summit Sign of the community of sons is a creative gesture that imposes a shift in vision and action, an absolutely new eye and gesture.

[In this way, faced with the destitution of the many - caused by the greed of the few - the attitude of the authentic Church does not take pleasure in emblems and fervour, nor in partial calls to distinction].

The breaking of the Bread takes over from the Manna dropped from above in the desert (Mt 14:15; 15:33; Mk 8:4) and entails its distribution - not only in particular situations.

There is no settling, in multiplying life for all.

This is the attitude of the living Body of the thaumaturgic Christ [not the miracle-worker] who feels called to be active in every circumstance.

Grateful adherence must lead us to the gift and sharing of 'bread'.

If it is not punctual alms-giving, external pietism, mannerist welfarism, there is the result:

Women and men will eat, they will remain full, and there will be food left over for others. Indeed, not all of God's intended guests are yet present....

We note that it had not even occurred to the disciples that the solution might come from the people themselves and their spirit - not from the patented leaders or some individual benefactor.

Unexpected solution: the question of food is solved not from above, but from within the people and with the few loaves they brought with them.

There is no solution with the verb 'to multiply' - i.e. 'to increase' ... what? relationships that count, increase property, pile up wiles.

The only therapy is the coexistence of 'breaking', 'giving', 'offering' (v.19). And everyone is involved, no one privileged.

At that time, competitiveness and class mentality characterised the pyramid society of the empire - and began to infiltrate even the small community, just starting out.

As if the Lord and the God of retribution could live side by side, yet.

It is the communion of the needy that conversely rises to the top in the non-artisanal Church.

Real sharing acts as the professor of the ubiquitous veteran, pretentious people, the only ones yet to be converted.The germ of their 'durability' should be not altitude and role, but love.

Such is the only meaning of sacred gestures; not other projects tinged with prevarication, or appearance.

The 'belonging' astound.

For the Lord, the distant (though still poised in their choices) are full participants in the messianic banquet - without preclusions, nor disciplines of the arcane with nerve-racking expectations.

Conversely, that Canteen presses in favour of others who have yet to be called. For a kind of re-establishment of the original Unity.

In short, the Redemption does not belong to elites concerned with the stability of their rule - which it is even the weak who must sustain.

Saved life comes to us by incorporation.

To internalise and live the message:

Have you ever broken your bread, passed on happiness and made recoveries that renew relationships, putting people who do not even have self-esteem back on their feet? Or have you favoured attitudes of the monarchical elite?

Appendix

Jesus wants contributions, resources and skills to work in synergy; to serve and unite for the life of the multitudes (vv.13-15.19).

The Eucharistic gesture - breaking of life - says: new heavens and new earth do not correspond to the world in which each one hurries to reap for himself or his circle, in order to grab the maximum of resources.

Even the Apostles - called by Jesus but still remaining at a safe distance from Him - are not the owners of the Bread, but those who are to give nourishment to all (v.16), to create abundance where there is none.

They are to share, not to rule - least of all over the opinions or situations of others. And, in order to avoid impoverishment and damage to happiness, place themselves in a logic of overcoming.

The Son reflects God's design in compassion for the needy crowd. However, his solution does not gloss over us - simply wiping away tears or erasing humiliation.

It invites us to use what we have, although this may seem ridiculous. But it teaches that shifting energies creates prodigious results.

This is how we respond in Christ to the world's great problems: by recovering the condition of the man viator - a being of passage, his essential mark - and by sharing goods.

Our real nakedness, the vicissitudes and experiences of our many brothers and sisters, who are different, are resources not to be evaluated with distrust, "as dangerous competitors or enemies" of our fulfilment (FT no.151).

The Lord does not agree with the idea of everyone making do (v.15); neither does he like alms, or the old idol of "buying" (v.15).

He imposes on his own that "the crowds" (plural) lie down in abundance (v.19 Greek text) as the lords and free people did at solemn banquets.

He wants and insists that it is primarily the disciples who serve (v.19), not other slaves.

And perhaps the most astounding thing is that he does not impose prior gestures of purification on any of those present, as was the custom in traditional, hypocritically sterilised and selective religiosity.

Before the meal, it required ablution: a ceremony that emphasised a sacred detachment between the pure and the impure.

The disciples' only task is to distribute the Food - then to be chopped up, sifted and assimilated personally, to build a new world - not to X-ray it beforehand; much less to be interested in it.

In religion we have a long rigmarole of fulfilments to observe in order to present ourselves before God, which unfortunately normalise us.

In the path of Faith, it is the free encounter with the Lord that makes us grow and complete, making us perfect and uncontaminated, unconditionally... extracting authentic Pearls, precisely from our character eccentricities (those that depart from millimetric agreements).

His Kingdom? All invited and brothers (even not in agreement), no one master or ruler - destined to lead the humble by his own hand, always standing in front or above - because he is quicker and more able to manage himself.

The Eucharist remains a Call to Real Conviviality (of differences as they are) and an evergreen Reminder not to settle for individual devotions or a twinnable but empty spirituality.

The working Faith thus has the Eucharist as its emblem, a revolution of sacredness. It seems strange, for us who have grown accustomed to it.

The aim of evangelisation is to emancipate from everything that threatens life, not only in its extreme limitation, but also in its everyday action - to the point of seeking the communion of goods.

In Matthew 14 the prodigy is placed after Jesus was rejected from Nazareth, Herod's concern, the murder of the Baptist.

The Source and Summit Sign of the community of sons is a creative gesture that imposes a shift of vision, an absolutely new eye.In the face of the destitution of the many - caused by the greed of the few - the attitude of the authentic Church does not take pleasure in emblems and fervour, nor in partial calls to distinguish itself in almsgiving.

The breaking of the Bread takes the place of the Manna dropped from above in the desert and involves its distribution - not only in special situations (v.15).

There is no contentment in multiplying life for all.

This is the attitude of the living Body of the thaumaturgic Christ [not the miracle-worker] who feels called to be active in every circumstance.

Eucharistic participation must lead us to the gift and sharing of bread.

The result: women and men will eat, remain full, and there will be food left over for others [not all of God's intended guests are still present...].

We note that it had not even occurred to the disciples that the solution might come from the people themselves and their spirit - not just the paternalism of the leaders or some individual benefactor.

Unexpected solution: the question of food is solved not from above, but only from within the people and with the few loaves they brought with them (vv.15-17).

There is no solution with the verb 'multiply' - i.e. 'increase' ... relationships that count, increase property, pile up wiles.

The only therapy is 'to break', 'to give', 'to distribute' (vv.16-19 Greek text).

And everyone is involved, no one privileged.

At that time, competitiveness and class mentality characterised the society of the empire - and began to infiltrate even the small community, just starting out.

As if the Lord and the God of retribution could live side by side, yet.

It is the communion of the needy that conversely takes centre stage in the authentic Church.

Real sharing acts as the professor of the ubiquitous veteran, pretentious and pretentious, the only ones who have yet to be converted.

The germ of their 'longevity' should be not altitude and role, but love.

Such is the only meaning of sacred gestures, not other projects tinged with bullying, or appearance.

The 'belonging' and veterans astound.

For the Lord, the distant (though still poised in their choices) are full sharers in the messianic banquet - without preclusions, nor disciplines of the arcane or nerve-wracking expectations.

Conversely, that Canteen cries out in favour of others who have yet to be called, for a kind of re-establishment of the original Unity.

In short, the Redemption does not belong to the (pyramidal monarchical) elites who are concerned about the stability of their dominance - which it is even the weak who must sustain.

[As St. Augustine said: "The Word of God that is daily explained to you and in a certain sense 'broken' is also daily Bread" (Sermo 58, IV: PL 38,395). Complete food: basic food and "companion" - historical and ideal, in code and in deed].

To internalise and live the message:

How does the Eucharistic gesture speak to you of the Revolution of Tenderness, and of your Calling by Name through the Church?

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

This Sunday’s Gospel describes the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves that Jesus worked for a great throng of people who had followed him to listen to him and to be healed of various illnesses (cf. Mt 14:14).

As evening fell the disciples suggested to Jesus that he send the crowds away so that they might take some refreshment. But the Lord had something else in mind: “You give them something to eat” (Mt 14:16). However they had “only five loaves... and two fish”. Jesus’ subsequent action evokes the sacrament of the Eucharist: “He looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds” (Mt 14:19).

The miracle consists in the brotherly sharing of a few loaves which, entrusted to the power of God, not only sufficed for everyone but enough was left over to fill 12 baskets. The Lord asked this of the disciples so that it would be they who distributed the bread to the multitude; in this way he taught and prepared them for their future apostolic mission: in fact, they were to bring to all the nourishment of the Word of life and of the sacraments.

In this miraculous sign the incarnation of God and the work of redemption are interwoven. Jesus, in fact, “went ashore” from the boat to meet the men and women (cf. Mt 14:14). St Maximus the Confessor said that the Word of God made himself present for our sake, by taking flesh, derived from us and conformed to us in all things save sin, in order to expose us to his teaching with words and examples suitable for us” (Ambigua 33: PG 91, 1285 C).

Here the Lord offers us an eloquent example of his compassion for people. We are reminded of all our brothers and sisters in the Horn of Africa who in these days are suffering the dramatic consequences of famine, exacerbated by war and by the lack of solid institutions. Christ is attentive to material needs but he wished to give more, because man always “hungers for more, he needs more” (Jesus of Nazareth, Doubleday, New York 2007, p. 267 (English translation). God’s love is present in the bread of Christ; in the encounter with him “we feed on the living God himself, so to speak, we truly eat the ‘bread from Heaven’” (ibid. p. 268).

Dear friends. “in the Eucharist Jesus also makes us witnesses of God’s compassion towards all our brothers and sisters. The Eucharistic mystery thus gives rise to a service of charity towards neighbour” (Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis, n. 88).

[Pope Benedict, Angelus 31 July 2011]

“How are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?"

Before the multitude which has followed him from the shores of the Sea of Galilee to the mountains in order to listen to his word, Jesus begins, with this question, the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves. This is the significant prelude to the long speech in which he reveals himself to the world as the real Bread of life which came down from heaven (cf. Jn 6:41).

1. We have listened to the evangelical narration: with five barley loaves and two fish, offered by a boy, Jesus feeds about five thousand people. But the latter, not understanding the depth of the "sign" in which they have been involved, are convinced that they have at last found the King-Messiah, who will solve the political and economic problems of their nation. Before this obtuse misunderstanding of his mission, Jesus withdraws, all alone, to the mountains.

We, too, beloved Brothers and Sisters, have followed Jesus and continue to follow him. But we can and must ask ourselves "With what interior attitude?" With the true one of faith, which Jesus expected of the Apostles and of the multitude that he had fed, or with an attitude of incomprehension? Jesus presented himself on that occasion like, in fact more than, Moses who had fed the people of Israel in the desert during the Exodus. He presented himself like, in fact more than, Elisha, who had fed a hundred persons with twenty loaves of barley and grain. Jesus manifested himself, and manifests himself to us today, as the One who is capable of satisfying for ever the hunger of our hearts: "I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst." (Jn 6:33)

And man, especially modern man, is so hungry: hungry for truth, justice, love, peace, beauty; but, above all, hungry for God. "We must hunger for God!", St Augustine exclaims ("famelici Dei esse debemus": Enarrat. in psal. 146, n. 17,: PL 37, 1895 f.). It is he, the heavenly Father, who gives us the true bread!

2. This bread, which we need, is first and foremost Christ, who gives himself to us in the sacramental signs of the Eucharist, and makes us hear, at every Mass, the words of the last Supper: "Take and eat, all of you: this is my body offered in sacrifice for you." In the sacrament of the eucharistic bread—the Second Vatican Council affirms —"the unity of all believers who form one body in Christ (cf. I Cor 10:17) is both expressed and brought about. All men are called to this union with Christ, who is the light of the world, from whom we go forth, through whom we live, and toward whom our journey leads us." (Lumen Gentium, 3.)

The bread that we need is, moreover, the Word of God, because "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Mt 4:4; cf. Dt 8:3). Certainly, men, too, can express and utter words of high value. But history shows us how the words of men are sometimes insufficient, ambiguous, disappointing, biased; while the Word of God is full of truth (cf. 2 Sam 7:28; 1 Cor 17:26); it is upright (Psalms 33:4); it is stable and remains for ever (cf. Psalms 119:89; 1 Pet 1:25).

We must listen religiously to this Word continually; assume it as the criterion of our way of thinking and acting; get to know it, by means of assiduous reading and personal meditation; but especially, we must day after day, in all our behaviour, make it ours, put it into practice,

The bread we need, finally, is grace; and we must invoke it, ask for it with sincere humility and tireless constancy, well aware that it is the most precious thing we can possess.

3. The path of our life, laid out for us by God's providential love, is a mysterious one, sometimes incomprehensible on the human plane, and nearly always hard and difficult. But the Father gives us the bread from heaven" (cf. In 6:32), to encourage us in our pilgrimage on earth.

I am happy to conclude with a passage from St Augustine, which sums up admirably that upon which we have meditated: "We can understand very well... how your Eucharist is daily food. The faithful know, in fact, what they receive and it is good that they should receive the daily bread necessary for this time. They pray for themselves, to become good, to be persevering in goodness, faith, and a good life... the Word of God, which is explained to us and, in a certain sense, broken, every day, is also daily bread" (Sermo 58, IV: PL 38, 395).

May Christ Jesus always multiply his bread, also for us!

Amen!

[Pope John Paul II, homily 29 July 1979]

The Gospel [...] presents to us the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves (see Mt 14,13-21). The scene takes place in a deserted place, where Jesus had retired with His disciples. But the people found Him so as to listen to Him and to be healed: indeed, His words and His gestures restore and bring hope. At sundown, the crowd was still present and the disciples, practical men, invited Jesus to send them away so that they could go and find something to eat. But He answered: “You give them something to eat” (v. 16). We can imagine the disciples’ faces! Jesus was well aware of what He was about to do, but He wanted to change their attitude: not to say, “send them away,” “let them fend for themselves”, “let them find something to eat”, but rather, “what does Providence offer us to share?” These are two opposite ways of behaving. And Jesus wants to bring them to the second way of behaving because the first proposal is that of the practical person, but is not generous: “send them away so they can go and find, let them fend for themselves.” Jesus thinks another way. Jesus wants to use this situation to educate His friends, both then and now, about God’s logic. And what is God’s logic that we see here? The logic of taking responsibility for others. The logic of not washing one’s hands, the logic of not looking the other way. No. The logic of taking responsibility for others. That “let them fend for themselves” should not enter into the Christian vocabulary.

As soon as one of the Twelve says, realistically, “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish”, Jesus answers, “Bring them here to me” (vv. 17-18). He takes the food in His hands, raises His eyes heavenward, recites the blessing and begins to break it and  give the pieces to the disciples to hand out. And those loaves and fish did not run out; there was enough, and plenty left over for thousands of people.

With this gesture, Jesus demonstrates His power; not in a spectacular way but as a sign of charity, of God the Father’s generosity toward His weary and needy children. He is immersed in the life of His people, He understands their fatigue and their limitations, but He does not allow anyone to be lost, or to lose out: He nourishes them with His word and provides food in plenty for sustenance.

In this Gospel passage we can perceive a reference to the Eucharist, especially in the description of the blessing, the breaking of the bread, delivery to the disciples, and distribution to the people (v. 19). It is noteworthy how close the link is between the Eucharistic bread, nourishment for eternal life, and daily bread, necessary for earthly life. Before offering Himself to the Father as the Bread of salvation, Jesus ensures there is food for those who follow Him and who, in order to be with Him, forgot to make provisions. At times the spiritual and the material are in opposition, but in reality spiritualism, like materialism, is alien to the Bible. It is not biblical language.

The compassion and tenderness that Jesus showed towards the crowds is not sentimentality, but rather the concrete manifestation of the love that cares for the people’s needs. And we are called to approach the Eucharistic table with these same attitudes of Jesus: compassion for the needs of others, this word that is repeated in the Gospel when Jesus sees a problem, an illness or these people without food… “He had compassion.” “He had compassion”. Compassion is not a purely material feeling; true compassion is patire con [to suffer with], to take others’ sorrows on ourselves. Perhaps it would do us good today to ask ourselves: Do I feel compassion when I read news about war, about hunger, about the pandemic? So many things… Do I feel compassion toward those people? Do I feel compassion toward the people who are near to me? Am I capable of suffering with them, or do I look the other way, or “they can fend for themselves”? Let us not forget this word “compassion,” which is trust in the provident love of the Father, and means courageous sharing.

May Mary Most Holy help us to walk the path that the Lord shows us in today's Gospel. It is the journey of fraternity, which is essential in order to face the poverty and suffering of this world, especially in this tragic moment, and which projects us beyond the world itself, because it is a journey that begins with God and returns to God.

[Pope Francis, Angelus 2 August 2020]

Opening armoured gates

(Lk 12:13-21)

«Some parts of our human family, it appears, can be readily sacrificed for the sake of others considered worthy of a carefree existence» [Fratelli Tutti n.18].

Basil the Great commented: «Here we do not condemn those who rob, but those who do not share his».

Senselessness of hoarding.

God’s Gift is complete, but everyone is in need. Why? To accentuate the «fruitful interchange».

And we are experiencing it: only the desire to be ‘born in reciprocity’ can combat the «impoverishment of all» and the same «cultural sclerosis» [cf. FT 133-138].

Each gesture of generosity conceals the blossoming of an innate life-giving energy, which makes the soul and capital flow outside the tight walls and beyond the edges of one’s storage.

A spur that does not make people fall back on convenience. An impulse that will instead shift our imagination towards entirely different horizons, beliefs and desires.

In short, taking communion is a matter of life and death, because rich and poor live or decline together.

Growth is therefore in giving and receiving.

In the unsurpassed Homily 6, the first of the Cappadocian Fathers emphasized that even those who abound in goods are tormented on what to do, asking themselves: «What will I do?».

«He complains like the poor. Are not these the words of who is oppressed by misery? What am I going to do? [...] What will I do? The answer was simple: I will satiate the hungry, open the barns and call all the poor' [...] Do not raise the prices. Do not wait for the famine to open the barns [...] Do not wait for the people to be reduced to hunger to increase your gold, nor the general misery for your enrichment. Do not trade on human misfortunes [...] Do not exacerbate the wounds inflicted by the scourge of adversity. You turn your eyes to your gold and you turn it away from your brother, you recognize every coin and you know how to distinguish the false one from the true one, but you completely ignore the brother who is in need».

The rich man in the parable seems to have no labourers or relatives, no wife, or children and friends: he had them, but in his reality there are - really - only him and possessions.

«Fool!» - God says to him (v.20).

The solution was very simple: opening the gates, so that the piled food could overflow for the needs of the less fortunate - instead of wasting time scrapping and rebuilding warehouses.

Maybe he died of a heart attack, but he was already dead in his soul.

The entrepreneur who scrutinizes the needs of others for profit, immediately perishes inside and outside; he suffers agitation, insomnia, torment, due to the stress of managing those external mirages.

It is these bizarre dreams that take breath away and become endless nightmares, dissipating our best energies.

On the contrary, it is in a climate of coexistence and conviviality of differences that the best stimuli and advice can be found, including for discovering what suits us best.

It would be enough to overcome greed, vanity and the common mindset, to feel better.

By abandoning the spirit of hoarding, we will move away from the obsession with calculation and immediate [fleeting] interests.

In this dynamic, experience opens up to the many faces of reality and people, living by Friendship.

Here, the intensity of our bonds fuels personal motivation, challenges, and the blossoming of love that drives our Vision forward.

Here is the threshold of the new Pearls that vice versa can emerge: to trust in life, in the new roads, in the actions that do not block the development of everyone, nor threaten the sense of Fraternity.

Leaving aside the stockpiling, we can yield to the liberating Exodus.

First step along the Way of our full Happiness: investing the many goods we still have to create Encounter and Relationship.

A matter of life or death (v.20).

[18th Sunday in O.T. (year C), August 3, 2025]

In this Sunday's Gospel, Jesus' teaching concerns, precisely, true wisdom and is introduced by one of the crowd: "Teacher, bid my brother divide the inheritance with me" (Lk 12: 13). In answering, Jesus puts him on guard against those who are influenced by the desire for earthly goods with the Parable of the Rich Fool who having put away for himself an abundant harvest stops working, uses up all he possesses, enjoying himself and even deceives himself into thinking he can keep death at an arm's length. However God says to him "Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?" (Lk 12: 20). The fool in the Bible, the one who does not want to learn from the experience of visible things, that nothing lasts for ever but that all things pass away, youth and physical strength, amenities and important roles. Making one's life depend on such an ephemeral reality is therefore foolishness. The person who trusts in the Lord, on the other hand, does not fear the adversities of life, nor the inevitable reality of death: he is the person who has acquired a wise heart, like the Saints.

[Pope Benedict, Angelus, 1 August 2010]

First section of Psalm 49[48]: 1-13
"In his riches, man lacks wisdom!' 

1. Our meditation on Psalm 49[48] will be divided into two parts, just as it is proposed on two separate occasions by the Liturgy of Vespers. We will now comment in detail on the first part in which it is hardship that inspires reflection, as in Psalm 72[71]. The just man must face "evil days" since he is surrounded by "the malice of [his] foes", who "boast of the vastness of their riches" (cf. Ps 49[48]: 6-7). 

The conclusion that the just man reaches is formulated as a sort of proverb, a refrain that recurs in the finale to the whole Psalm. It sums up clearly the predominant message of this poetic composition: "In his riches, man lacks wisdom:  he is like the beasts that are destroyed" (v. 13). In other words, untold wealth is not an advantage, far from it! It is better to be poor and to be one with God. 

2. The austere voice of an ancient biblical sage, Ecclesiastes or Qoheleth, seems to ring out in this proverb when it describes the apparently identical destiny of every living creature, that of death, which makes frantic clinging to earthly things completely pointless: "As he came from his mother's womb he shall go again, naked as he came, and shall take nothing for his toil.... For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other.... All go to one place" (Eccl 5: 14; 3: 19, 20). 

3. A profound blindness takes hold of man if he deludes himself that by striving to accumulate material goods he can avoid death. Not for nothing does the Psalmist speak of an almost animal-like "lack of understanding". 

The topic, however, was to be explored by all cultures and forms of spirituality and its essence was expressed once and for all by Jesus, who said: "Take heed, and beware of all covetousness; for a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions" (Lk 12: 15). He then recounts the famous Parable of the Rich Fool who accumulated possessions out of all proportion without a thought of the snare that death was setting for him (cf. Lk 12: 16-21). 

4. The first part of the Psalm is wholly centred on this illusion that has the rich man's heart in its grip. He is convinced that he will also even succeed in "buying off" death, attempting as it were to corrupt it, much as he had to gain possession of everything else, such as success, triumph over others in social and political spheres, dishonest dealings, impunity, his satisfaction, comforts and pleasures. 

But the Psalmist does not hesitate to brand this excess as foolish. He uses a word that also has financial overtones: "ransom": "No man can buy his own ransom, or pay a price to God for his life. The ransom of his soul is beyond him. He cannot buy life without end, nor avoid coming to the grave" (Ps 49[48]: 8-10). 

5. The rich man, clinging to his immense fortune, is convinced that he will succeed in overcoming death, just as with money he had lorded it over everything and everyone. But however vast a sum he is prepared to offer, he cannot escape his ultimate destiny. Indeed, like all other men and women, rich and poor, wise and foolish alike, he is doomed to end in the grave, as happens likewise to the powerful, and he will have to leave behind on earth that gold so dear to him and those material possessions he so idolized (cf. vv. 11-12). 

Jesus asked those listening to him this disturbing question: "What shall a man give in return for his life?" (Mt 16: 26). No exchange is possible, for life is a gift of God, and "in his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind" (Jb 12: 10). 

6. Among the Fathers who commented on Psalm 49[48], St Ambrose deserves special attention. He extends its meaning to a broader vision, starting precisely with the Psalmist's initial invitation:  "Hear this, all you peoples, give heed, all who dwell in the world". 

The Bishop of Milan commented in ancient times: "Let us recognize here, from the outset, the voice of the Lord our Saviour who calls the peoples to the Church in order to renounce sin, to become followers of the truth and to recognize the advantage of faith". Moreover, "all the hearts of the various human generations were polluted by the venom of the serpent, and the human conscience, enslaved by sin, was unable to detach itself from it". This is why the Lord, "of his own initiative, in the generosity of his mercy promised forgiveness, so that the guilty would be afraid no longer and with full awareness rejoice to be able to offer their offices as servants to the good Lord who has forgiven sins and rewarded virtues" (Commento a Dodici Salmi, n. 1:  SAEMO, VIII, Milan-Rome, 1980, p. 253). 

7. In these words of our Psalm we can hear echoes of the Gospel invitation:  "Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you" (Mt 11: 28). Ambrose continues, "Like someone who will come to visit the sick, like a doctor who will come to treat our painful wounds, so [the Lord] points out the cure to us, so that men may hear him clearly and hasten with trust and promptness to receive the healing remedy.... He calls all the peoples to the source of wisdom and knowledge and promises redemption to them all, so that no one will live in anguish or desperation" (n. 2:  ibid., pp. 253, 255).

[Pope John Paul II, General Audience, 20 October 2004]