Daily Gospel Reflection
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August 2, 2020
When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick.
When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”
Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”
They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.”
And he said, “Bring them here to me.”
Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
“May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands, for the praise and glory of his name, for our good and for the good of all his holy church.” The assembly prays this prayer at every Mass as the priest offers the gifts that will become the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharistic meal. When I pray this, I sometimes think of this gospel passage about the multiplication of the loaves and fish. The disciples do not know how they can feed the crowd. They do not imagine that anything they can gather and offer will be sufficient to the great need of the occasion before them. But Jesus simply takes what they do have and makes it surpass the needs of the crowd.
The same thing happens every time we gather for the Eucharist. No matter what we offer to God (individually or collectively), it can never fulfill the great spiritual hunger that exists inside of us. Only God can satisfy that hunger. And yet God asks us to make our own offering so that he can work from those gifts instead of creating a solution out of nothing. Just like the disciples gathered five loaves and two fish, we bring to God the offering of our own lives, our prayers, and a small offering of bread and wine at each Mass. I am amazed every time when we receive back from that meager offering nothing less than the body and blood, soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist! In the gospel today, Jesus “looked up to heaven, blessed and broke the loaves…” just as we witness in each Mass.
This reading reminds me that I should not be discouraged when I have very little to offer God on any particular day. I am tempted to think that I only should come to God in prayer once I have an acceptable offering, either in my spiritual disposition or in the faithful things I have accomplished in my life. But this is not so. Whatever I have, I should bring before the Lord. God will multiple those offerings, feeding me and perhaps a multitude of others as well.
Prayer
Jesus, you open wide your hands and heart and fill us with living food. You give us the bread of the Eucharist, your Word, and the community of the Church. You give us the bread of nature’s beauty, of friendship, of people who care for us when we are in need of help. You give us the food on our table, the roof over our heads, the clothing we wear. All the necessities of life come from you, and the extras as well. Blessed be you, Lord, God of all creation. Amen.
Saint of the Day
St. Peter Julian Eymard’s devotion to the Eucharist led him to an active life of love of God and neighbor. He was a contemporary of Blessed Basil Moreau, and both priests sought to revive the Church in the wake of the French Revolution.
Peter Julian was born in 1811 to a poor family just after the Revolution. Peter decided to become a priest and joined the seminary against his family’s wishes. He soon got sick, however, and had to withdraw from his studies—he never fully recovered his health.
A few years later, he tried again, and was successful in his training—he was ordained a priest in 1834 and joined the Marist Fathers. His life and ministry was marked by a strong devotion to Mary and to the Eucharist, and these were the focus of much of his preaching and teaching.
“We believe in the love of God for us,” he wrote. “To believe in love is everything. It is not enough to believe in the truth. We must believe in love and love is our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. That is the faith that makes our Lord loved. Ask for this pure and simple faith in the Eucharist. Men will teach you, but only Jesus will give you the grace to believe in him. You have the Eucharist. What more do you want?”
With the encouragement of his friend, St. John Vianney, Peter Julian founded two new religious orders dedicated to the Blessed Sacrament. Though the orders struggled at first, they eventually succeeded in bringing about his vision of a united community of people—priests, deacons, sisters, and laypeople—deeply formed by the Mass and prayer before the Eucharist.
Towards the end of his life, he took a long retreat in Rome and received a mystical experience of communion with Christ, which he described in a series of letters and meditative works. He died on this date in 1868 after suffering a stroke in France. His relics rest in the Basilica.
St. Peter Julian Eymard, who loved Christ in the Eucharist, pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image of St. Peter Julian Eymard is available for use under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Last accessed March 28, 2025 on Wikimedia Commons.
