Sharing Even the Last Bread (Corpus Christi C)

What can five loaves and two fish do? How can these ever satisfy the hunger of the multitude? Five loaves and two fish for the five thousand men?!  Not to mention women and children who were most likely among the crowd! Impossible!

This must have been the thoughts of the apostles in today’s gospel (Lk 9: 11b-17) as they counselled Jesus to dismiss the crowd that they might find their own lodging and provisions.  The feeling of helplessness and resignation must have dominated the apostles’ attitude:  Helplessness because of the obvious poverty of resources in the face of so great a need; and resignation because they felt no longer capable of addressing the crowd’s hunger. The need was simply beyond what they thought they could handle, so they opted for the easy solution—“dismiss the crowd” (v. 12).

This temptation to feel helpless and resigned is indeed very strong whenever we are confronted with the problem of having to come to terms with so little resources for so great a need.  I had the opportunity to start a parish from out of a rural chapel community. Right away as I began the journey with the people, I was made aware of so many things to be done which required, of course, resources.  Indeed, there were times when we were tempted to feel helpless whenever we realized we have very little to start with.  It wasn’t difficult to wonder, as the Lord’s apostles did, what can five loaves and two fish do in the face of all the needs.

Sharing overcomes poverty. But the gospel today not only assures us that we are not left alone in our poverty but also shows us the secret to overcoming the needs of the community.  As an assurance, Jesus does not dismiss the hungry crowd to fend for themselves. Rather, the gospel recounts that after gathering the people, Jesus takes, blesses, breaks, and gives the five loaves and two fish to the crowd to satisfy everyone present and even amazes them with the abundant surplus afterwards. Jesus takes whatever we can offer even out of our poverty, blesses them and does his marvelous works out of them.  Jesus brings us out of the helplessness of our poverty and assures us of the unlimited abundance that he offers. The secret: He starts by asking what we have to offer. The secret to abundance is sharing even whatever little we have.

Are we willing to offer him the last bread and fish that we have? Or do we hold on to our limited resources to make sure we have something left for ourselves albeit little?

I am more and more convinced that any form of poverty in any community is fundamentally rooted in the unwillingness of the individuals to share what they are keeping for themselves. There’s a lot of wisdom in our erstwhile national slogan, “Bayan muna bago sarili.” We could have been enjoying in abundance now had we truly lived by the maxim. Instead, starting from our public leaders down to the hoi poloi, what we tend to do is to make sure that we get for ourselves or our families and clan whatever is up for grabs.  “Sarili muna bago ang bayan.” Isn't this complete disregard of the common good in favor of our selfish agenda which serves as the sturdy backbone of the poverty in many of our communities?

Becoming a Eucharistic Community. The gospel today recounting the multiplication of bread and fish alludes to the last supper event when Jesus instituted the Eucharist.  His four acts, taking, blessing, breaking, and giving are common to these two events. So more than just a recounting of Jesus’ miraculous acts of multiplication of the bread, the gospel today is a catechesis on the Eucharist. The community that Jesus founded is essentially a Eucharistic community. A community that gathers, celebrates, and makes present the self-sacrificing act of Jesus at the last supper. Jesus offered to the Father not just any bread. What He took, blessed, broke, and gave was no longer an ordinary bread but the bread of life—his body, his very self.

What do we have to offer? Jesus wants us to offer even the last bread that we keep. It is little for sure. But it doesn't matter. What matters is that we offer the little that we have for the good of the community we belong to just as He offered himself for the sake of the many.

A Eucharistic community will always be one that transcends self-centeredness, one whose members are willing to do some acts of self-sacrifice... of “breaking” oneself to be “given” to others.

Hence, the Solemnity of Corpus Christi today is a renewal of our commitment as a Eucharistic community where the miracle of our Lord continues to happen. And the miracle is this: that each one of us is willing to give whatever one has, even one’s very self, for the good of the community just as Jesus does.  Then, we can be the joyful witnesses of the amazing left-over and abundance of God’s grace more than enough to dispel our sense of helplessness and our defeatist resignation.

Hawak Kamay sa Paglalakbay (All Saints Day)

A funny story I’ve always enjoyed retelling since my naughty high school years: Two Mr. Suave look-a-likes were bragging about their familiarity with the saints. This happened in such time when sporting a mustache is a fad. In those days, not to have a mustache is tantamount to being considered less a man! To find out who was truly knowledgeable, they agreed to do a contest. Each would have to mention a saint’s name. For every name one uttered, he would pluck a strand of the other’s mustache. (Just imagine what’s at stake, huh.) So the contest began.

Mr. Suave I: “St. Augustine!” He then plucked a strand of the other’s mustache which caused the other to be teary-eyed.

Mr. Suave II: “St. Joseph!” Then he did the same to the other.

“St. Therese!” “St. Magdalene!” “St. Thomas!” “St. Francis!” So on and so forth… They were both shedding tears because of the pain. Then they came to the point that one could no longer recall a saint. Mr. Suave II began to be frantic for he was about to lose, when all of a sudden he grinned and, at the top of his lungs, shouted, “Todos Los Santos!”

Ouuucccchhhh! That ended the mustache era.

All Saints Day Solemnity is honoring not just a favorite saint but all the unsung heroes of outstanding love and dedication to Christian life whom we believed have made it, “without much fanfare,” to heaven. While our devotion to our individual patron saints gives us the opportunity to emulate the exceptional virtues of their lives and maybe rely too on their intercession, the celebration of All Saints Day brings to mind the “communion of saints” and offers us the chance to honor the whole crowd of saints.

John’s vision as proclaimed in the first reading (Rev. 7, 2-4, 9-14) depicts “the great multitude which no one could count from every nation, race, people, and tongue… who have survived the great period of trial.” This reminds us of the communal dimension of our destiny as God’s children. Our journey to God is not the individualist’s I-and-my-savior affair. Instead, today’s solemnity, instructs us that our journey is the path of loving relationship between us, as God’s people, and God, as a Trinity—a community of persons. Our responsorial psalm rightly exclaims our desire as a people: “Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face.” Furthermore, the second reading (1 Jn 3, 1-3) reminds us that we are called “God’s children” because of the Father’s love and we shall see him as he is.

Again, we don’t journey as isolated individuals. We journey as a people… as children of God… as a family of God towards a destiny which is nothing but communion with one another, with the whole of creation, and with the Triune God.

This is an invitation to rethink our convenient individualistic spirituality. We are challenge to rise above our propensity towards self-righteousness, our penchant to a holier-than-thou piety that looks down on others whose lives may not measure up to our own standards. We have to correct our anong-pakialam-ko-sa-yo attitude to life. Of course, any spirituality or relationship with God has to be very personal and unique to the individuals. However, it has to find its expression in the market place, its celebration in the community. After all, love, which is at the heart of Christian spirituality, cannot thrive in isolation. It flourishes in relationships. It blossoms in a fertile garden we call community.


So, if our definite future is communion of the saints as promised by what we are celebrating today, our present way of living must, to some degree, already conform to such a vision. We need to stop thinking as an isolated “I” in competition with others. We need to think family. Think community. Hawak-kamay… sa paglalakbay… as the song goes… in good times… in bad times… in the very dry seasons… and in the very wet seasons of this changed climate!

The beatitudes proclaimed once more in the gospel reading (Mt. 5, 1-12) are the key towards our transformation into a holy community not only in that definite future but already in the here and now. To be “poor in spirit,” for instance, can be an invitation to be free from material enslavement and to be free for equitable sharing of possessions so that our poor neighbors may indeed have their share. To “mourn” may be an invitation to empathize with those who are suffering and therefore move beyond our selfish personal whims and caprices to reach out to them. To be “merciful” is to be forgiving to those who have wronged or hurt us. It’s an invitation to reconciliation—a necessity for any imperfect human community. To be single-hearted is to make God our deepest longing and priority in life rather than the misleading materialistic values to which our secular society is helplessly being configured. To be “peacemaker” is a challenge to work for harmony in this fragmented society. To endure persecution and insult because of the Lord’s name is to share in the redemptive suffering of Christ.

We are destined to be a community of saints in heaven. Many of our brothers and sisters, by God’s grace we believe, have gone ahead of us. We honor them today. But while on this earth, we can endeavor to make our families and communities conform to that glorious community of saints we are hoping for. Let us be guided by the path to happiness laid out for us by the Lord’s teachings on the beatitudes. No one journeys in isolation. We journey together as God’s family. Hawak-kamay… sa paglalakbay.