All our needs

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080425.cfm

If there is one thing that we are sufficiently focused on in our society today it is this: filling our needs. We spend countless hours every week considering what we will eat, what we will wear, what we need to get or stay healthy, what we need for our house, our office, our yard, what we need to look our best, etc. etc. etc. Part of that is obtaining the things, but a bigger part is determining what our needs are. This is where God has a huge advantage.

God already knows what we need, I mean really what we really need. Very often we think we need one thing, and then we get it, and realize it was not what we needed at all.

We can see this a little bit in unfolding story of the feeding of the five thousand. First off, let's acknowledge that when the Apostles first raised the issue of the crowds needing food, Jesus would have already considered this and known what was needed. He already had a plan for the solution. The solution was both an answer to the immediate need of the crowd to have food to eat to sustain them for the day, and the beginning of an answer for a need that mankind had since the fall of Adam and Eve.

The miraculous multiplication of the loaves showed that Jesus could feed so many from so little, and the leftovers (12 baskets for twelve tribes) showed that He could provide enough to feed all of Israel - much like manna fed all of Israel. (in a later, similar miracle, there are 10 leftover baskets - enough for the whole world) Also like the manna, this bread would satisfy for the moment but would leave them wanting more - not more of the same thing - but something more. In the Old Testament, God sent quail. This meat would sustain them for their journey to an earthly promised land, but Jesus will provide flesh, His own flesh that will sustain them for a journey to the heavenly promised land.

Jesus knows what they need now, and what they REALLY need. This is true of us now as well. God does not only care about spiritual things. He created us as a 'body-spirit composite' and so He knows better than anyone what our physical needs are. We can pray to Him for those, and we should. Often God will respond and provide for those needs. Sometimes He does not. In every case, God knows our REAL NEEDS and is working to provide for those. Often, we have to cooperate (you can lead a horse to water...) in order for these needs to be satisfied.

Jesus uses the multiplication of the loaves as a living metaphor for the feeding of our souls that He plans to accomplish through the Eucharist. An important aspect of this, that we must not lose sight of, is that Jesus feeds a crowd. A primary function of the Eucharist is to unite us. It is called Communion for a reason. It unites all who receive it throughout the world, bringing us together as one so that we might operate as 'The Body of Christ' in the world. As St. Paul puts it: "we are many parts, but we are all one Body." He dies and rises to give us this sacrament as the means of answering His own greatest prayer: "Father, I pray...that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one" John 17:22-23

In an earlier chapter of John, Jesus says that He tells us about the vine and the branches (you in me and I in you) so that "my joy may be in you, and your joy may be complete." His 'joy' is reconciling us to the Father to live with Him in heaven forever. This joy is in us when we, joined together through the Bread of Life, bring others to Him. Only then will our joy be complete and our needs truly met. This is what we were made for, and when we are engaged in this, He will fulfill our every need.