GOSPEL REFLECTION, WEDNESDAY, 1ST WEEK OF ADVENT, 3 DECEMBER 2025

Matthew 15:29-37.  Times and dates of major incidents in the gospels are sometimes very clearly stated – such as the precise time and place of Jesus birth and death.  At other times they have to be worked out from hints within the accounts of particular incidents.  For example, the feeding of the 5,000 took place in springtime (the grass was green); it took place with a Jewish crowd (there were twelve baskets of food left over, likely a reference to the twelve tribes of Israel).  The feeding of the four thousand, the incident in today’s gospel, took place in summer or autumn (the ground was bare, as it is at those times); seven baskets of food were left over (likely a reference to the seven tribes of Canaan, a Gentile area); it took place in a Gentile area east of the Sea of Galilee.  The divine generosity of these two events, which are signs of the Kingdom to come, includes both Jews and Gentiles, a sign of God’s universal care for humanity.

In gospel events, things are not always what they seem to be outwardly.  They also have an interior, hidden significance, understood in all their dimensions spiritually as signs of God’s presence, as signs of the Kingdom.  So it is in today’s gospel reading.  A crowd has gathered to hear Jesus’ teachings.  It is most likely a Gentile crowd, since it is close to the Decapolis, a grouping of ten Greek-influenced cities which are in a gentile area.  They may be in the crowd with all sorts of motives too – they are not all the same.  It is late in the day, a time signifying that a divine event, the fullness of the Kingdom, is very near.  Jesus gathers his disciples and asks them to see that the crowd is fed, signifying that divine intervention can come through the agency of disciples faithfully following Jesus’ teaching and his commands.  A crowd is fed.  Their need, ‘for which Jesus had compassion,’ is met in a practical sense – they are nourished, but the event is not ordinary.  It is a sign of the Kingdom already present but yet to come in its fullness, in which we are spiritually cared for and nourished with divine generosity, divine presence.  It is a Kingdom yet to come in its fullness, and it is for ALL of us.

As Catholic Christians we cannot escape the eucharistic sense of this incident.  We are fed by God’s generosity and grace, in Eucharist whose significance is a sign by faith of divine presence and a sign of the Kingdom yet to come in its fullness – yet the Kingdom is already present in it, and it is sign in faith of salvation for all humanity.