Learning to Understand the Loaves: Can We Help to Build an Economy of Gift and Communion?

By Deacon Keith Fournier
1/9/2013
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

We are by grace and nature called to communion with God and, in Him, to communion with one another. That should change everything, including how we relate to the goods of the earth and how we share those goods with one another.

We see, revealed in the humanity of Jesus, who we are to become and how we are to live with one another. I suggest we also see in the account of the feeding of the five thousand a key to a new way of considering economic issues as we seek to apply the principles offered by Catholic Social Thought to this vital intersection of faith and culture.

A contemporary rendering of the hungry crowd

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CHESAPEAKE, VA (Catholic Online) - On Tuesday of the week between the Feast of the Epiphany and the Baptism of the Lord this year I will read St. Mark's Account of the feeding of the five thousand at Mass (Mk. 6:34 - 44) On Wednesday the account continues and Mark makes an important connection between the Lord calming the winds and seas and the disciples understanding about the loaves. (Mk 6:45 - 52)

During that encounter, the disciples encouraged Jesus to dismiss the crowd because, in their assessment, they could not feed them even with two hundred days wages. They did not see with the eyes of faith. Jesus did. In His Sacred Humanity, He was moved with compassion for the crowd. He also understood the economy of heaven. Do we?

Jesus asked the disciples a simple question: "what do you have?" They did not understand. They had been invited to participate in God's work by simply giving what they had in a Holy Exchange. When they did, Jesus used the matter given by men, five loaves and two fish, to manifest the manna of heaven.

The next day the instruction and the experience continued. We find them in the boat fishing. We find Him praying. Their placement in the "boat" in the story was a favorite image for the early fathers, seen as a figure of the ark of the Old Covenant and the ark of the New, which is the Church.

It is this Church, a communion of persons joined in Him, that Jesus came to found and over which He would later install these men to continue His redemptive mission. But first they had to "understand about the loaves".

This kind of understanding only comes from "communion" with the Father. It is the fruit of authentic faith. He invited the disciples to believe that when they have Him, they have everything. Yet, here in a storm, they fled to the familiar, the fear of the circumstances. So powerful were their fears that they prevented them from even recognizing God Incarnate as He passed right before them! They thought He was a ghost!

How crippling our own fears can become when we do not commune in prayer but rely on ourselves and our mere human effort. They had not "understood about the loaves". Do we? We will live the way we love. Faith is a light that is to preside over our entire lives, even during those storms that inevitably come.

When it does, we see Jesus right there in the midst of the storm. We come to experience authentic peace, even in apparent turmoil and we learn to navigate the waters of daily life. The Lord heard the cry of the poor as it issued from the mouths of his own disciples and He spoke these beautiful words: "Take Courage it is I: Don't Be Afraid".

However, the words and the encounter speak to us about much more. Let us ask the Lord to help us come to "understand the loaves" and the principles the entire encounter may reveal. Perhaps the various accounts of the multiplication of the loaves not only recount a miracle of the past, but can open up to us an understanding of the possibilities of an economic order rooted in gift and communion.

Pope Benedict's Encyclical letter "Charity in Truth" (Caritas in Veritate') contains within it the seeds of hope for building what the Church has long called a "truly integral humanism". The very idea of building an economy of communion and gift is rooted in this understanding.

The Holy Father reminded us that "ideological rejection of God and atheism of indifference, oblivious to the Creator and at risk of becoming equally oblivious to human values, constitute some of the chief obstacles to development today. A humanism which excludes God is an inhuman humanism." (#78)

In an age which has born the bad fruits of atheistic and "secular" humanism, we are called to proclaim the new and true humanism revealed in Jesus Christ, the New Man. These words of the Second Vatican Council in its' document on the relationship of the Church in the "modern" world, reflect the understanding of the early Church:

"The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. For Adam, the first man, was a figure of Him Who was to come, namely Christ the Lord. Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear."

In this letter Pope Benedict addresses economic challenges presented by globalism. He ...

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1 - 4 of 4 Comments

Gerald Bertel
4 months ago
First we must learn to forgive ourselves and others before we can really follow the gospels and love our neighbors. We hate abortion, and I think, we have proven over the last 40 years that we hate political parties, women who have abortions and the doctors who perform these ghastly acts. Jesus loved everyone including the sinners and taught them the truth and to sin no more. That is why he came to earth. Today, we love only those people who agree with us and yet we expect to change their minds of those who don't. I have been on the 18 hour bus trip from St. Louis to Washington D C about 20 times and I have witnessed a dramtic change in the attitudes of some of these well meaning marchers. When I hear the gospels about love your neighbor as your self and hear the Amens I wonder if we really know what we are saying. We need to understand our goals and understand that we can not acheive these goals with hate in our hearts.
Emma
4 months ago
I can't speak with any authority on global economics. My knowledge is miniscule at best. But, the one shining example that comes to mind as I consider the "give what you have " and the story of the loaves, is the Kahn Academy. One man, Sal Kahn, in an effort to help his young niece and nephew with their algebra posted some tutorials on you tube. This small effort has grown into an online school that circles the globe while at the same time placing responsibility for the learning experience into the hands of the student and parents. This man, an engineer, not a professional educator is changing the lives of thousands of people worldwide when his initial intent was only to help his own young family members! This school is a godsend and takes students from kindergarten through college prep and SAT Prep covering not only math, sciences and history, but also the arts, computer sciences and beyond. All at no charge. Check it out : kahnacademy.org :)
Tom McGuire
4 months ago
I could not agree with you more about the interpretation of the two gospel accounts. However, Jesus did not rail against paganism and the Roman government. Instead He told stories and parales that touched people's hearts and called them to conversion.
Larry
4 months ago
Christianity is not an economic system and can't espose a way to run any economy. if that were true, lets look at all the different economic systems it supported and aligned with in the past centuries (kings, rulers, families rule, church rule, etc.). The church may have things to say about how econmic systems are run, who they are helping and who they are ignoring. The concept that you can't do anything that hurts the most vulnerable or the poor can't really address very well any economic systems humans can think of. No matter what we do, we favor some things and people and disadvantage others and other things to some degree, even in families, societies, etc. Even the church has done this and does this for its vision and goals. The church does change when it recognizes wrong it or its members have done (though it can be condemned for all the time it did little or nothing) and for helping us learn to forgive. (Change after Luther took a stand, finally responding to the recent sex scandals, change from some of the attitudes about modernism in Vatican I vs. what we got from Vatican II)

Capitalism or Freem Market Economics has helped more people get out of poverty in shorter times than any other systems we've used. It does not take a particular view of the poor or the rich but gives the structure for material success. There more to being successful than material success but economics is talking about this world and material gain - sufficient to live, more than sufficient to survive negative things that happen and live more a lifestyle you want, more wealth to live as you want, provide protection for familiy and those you are interested in and help others who need help.

Free market economics can be run in many ways (USA, China to some degree, Japan, Chile, etc.) and they don't all work the same but work similarly. One problem with the term 'poor' is it has become a comparative term rather than a term to describe a level of poverty. In the USA, many we call 'poor' are poor in comparison to those who have great wealth but not poor compared to other poor from around the world in how they live, what they can purchase for themselves and family, what they can do, opportunities they have, how they are protected and helped by government and organizations, etc. One reason so many people want to come to the USA is not only the opportunites you have here but because of the support system we have to live and try and succeed (bankruptsy laws give us another bite at the apple of success)

We are to focus on helping the poor but who is poor and what responsibilities do the poor in economic systems have to do for themselves (God helps those who help themselves - the parable of the king who left and gave 3 men who worked for him to increase what he gave them when he left - 2 increased what they got and 1 burried it so he would lose nothing) We ask for help but we also have to lean how things work in a society and do the work so they work for us, our famiies and others we are concerned with. The community spirit comes from the concern and care we have for each other, not in creating an economic system so we all can live

The first Christians tried to live in a community sharing all but did not continue when they realized the end of the world or ages would not come soon - we're all still here, aren't we? Some of the first settlers in the USA lived in community sharing everything but that attempt failed in producing enough for them all - then they changed and gave each familiy an investment in land and animals to care for them and produce for themselves and for others - private ownership - and worked out a system of sharing AFTER each was able to do what they could.

Adam Smith focused on 'every man for himself' his own interests to have them be successful. John Nash (American economist) later added "every man for him/herself, for his/her own interests AND considering the interests of others involved to be successful (a more cooperative approach) - focus on self interests (not selfsihness, though it can turn into that) but also with an eye to the interests of others. I am my brothers keeper but first I am my keeper since mine is the life I am responsible for and will be judged on in the final judgment (what does it profit a man if he gains the world but looses his soul). Even in business doing for others can be good business but the goal of business is to survive and thrive (as is the goal of any organism).

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