Jesus feeds His lambs

Fr David Howell• June 22, 2025

“Jesus spoke to the crowd of the kingdom of God and cured those who needed healing” (John 9:11)

Before miraculously multiplying food for the five thousand, Jesus was teaching and healing them. His disciples, predicting a problem, wanted to send them away. But Jesus instead tells them to provide for the crowd, and helps them achieve it, so that he can keep close to his flock: he wanted to keep teaching and healing them.

After his Ascension, Jesus wanted a way to keep close to us, so he can teach and heal us unceasingly. The miracle of the Eucharist, his real presence under the appearance of bread and wine, lets him do this. When he sent the Holy Spirit from heaven at Pentecost, it was not as a substitute; rather the Holy Spirit makes Jesus present again in new ways, above all in Holy Communion.

The twelve apostles doubted Jesus could use them to feed the crowds – they lacked food and had no money to buy more – but they obeyed his instructions. They divided the masses into a hundred groups of fifty and began to distribute the five loaves and two fish which Jesus had blessed. They went from each holding a small piece of bread or fish to each holding a basket full of scraps. They each had over 400 people to feed, and soon “all were satisfied” (9:17).

If we obey Jesus step by step, he can work miracles through our hands. Was it impossible for the twelve to divide a crowd into groups of fifty, or to hand to others what Jesus gives? Let us listen to Jesus and he will feed others through us, so he can constantly teach and heal them, especially in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood.

He longs to be close to us, more than we desire to be close to him; he wants to be inside us, as he was inside Mary his mother for nine months; then she gave him life but now he gives us life by his Eucharistic presence within us.

A detail from The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes by Lambert Lombard (1505–1566)