Although the word does not appear in the liturgical texts, generosity is perhaps the key to these texts. The generosity of God invites us to participate gratuitously in the messianic banquet: “He who has no money, come, buy and eat” (Is 55: 1). God’s generosity is revealed by Jesus Christ when he multiplied the loaves and fish for thousands of people, satisfied their hunger. Thereafter, the disciples still collected twelve baskets full of leftovers (Gospel). Before God’s generosity, Paul believed that there was nothing in heaven or on earth that could separate us from the love of the Father manifested in Jesus Christ (cf Rom 8: 38-39).

Doctrinal Messages

In the Holy Scriptures, many names are attributed of God. He is God, the Almighty. He is just, wise, and rich in mercy, etc. There is no text in which it is said that God is generous, but this divine trait underlies and fills all of the other attributes. Omnipotence, divine justice, and mercy emanate from his infinite generosity. We can thus say that God is extremely generous when manifesting his power, his justice, or his mercy.

In today’s first reading, God’s generosity is revealed in the context of a covenant. God takes the initiative and establishes a covenant with his people. God himself “pays” for the banquet with which he establishes the covenant. In the multiplication of the loaves, Christ underscores God’s generosity with the overabundance of food. In the Bread of Life Discourse, Jesus says: “I am the bread of life. No one who comes to me will ever hunger; no one who believes in me will ever thirst” (Jn 6: 35). Christ is this overabundant food, bread that never ends, given to us by the Father.

God’s generosity is not an ostentatious display of power or a decoy to impress and attract admiration. God’s generosity responds to human poverty, to a person’s deepest abandonment. A person’s most pressing need is subsistence, and God pours forth his generosity through the fertility of the soil and the fecundity of plants and animals. Man feels the burning desire for the divine, to be united with God, and God’s generosity fulfills this desire completely by revealing himself as the God of history and as the faithful spouse of the covenant. The individual, torn apart by sin and possessed of repentance, needs forgiveness, and God’s generosity opens the arms of his mercy to man as to a prodigal son. The path of life is long for man, and is filled with snares; this is why he seeks a strong hand to hold, a companion and friend to walk with. Thus God shows man his generosity in the Eucharist and the gift of the Holy Spirit. In the human heart burns the desire for immortal life, and God’s generosity reveals to us the risen Christ and our destiny as people who have risen with Christ. In the last analysis, we may assert that Jesus Christ from the Incarnation to the Ascension never ceased showing us the face of God, Father of generous love. Paul began to understand God’s generous love when Christ appeared to him on the road to Damascus. As the years went by, through the divine revelation assimilated over long hours of prayer, he progressively deepened in the infinite greatness of God’s love (longitude, latitude, height and depth). When faced with the extraordinary power of the generous love of the Father, Paul – and with him all of Christ’s disciples – reacts in a genuine and consistent manner. “For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come … will be able to separate us and the love of God, known to us in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8: 38-39). The Christian cannot help but feel generous in his response to God’s generosity.

Pastoral Suggestions

Among our Christian faithful, we often hear complaints against God. He is held responsible for the origin of all personal or collective evils. If an innocent person dies, God is responsible. If one’s son takes drugs or is HIV positive, it is God’s fault. If an accident happens to a loved one, the only reaction we can think of is to complain about God, who does not care for us. There is hardly an accident for which God is not blamed as being responsible. It is an easy way out of one’s own responsibility. It is an alibi for the misuse of human freedom. It is the “scapegoat” of many human errors, of many disturbances, of many violations of justice and dignity. Could God have ceased to be generous with man and become a stingy merchant of happiness? Could it perhaps be that we blame God for things that are only the consequence of man’s free action? Wouldn’t it be a lot better to open our eyes to a God who continues to show and manifest his generosity today, as in the past, in the individual and history?

Before the false image of God as the enemy of human happiness, Christians are called to proclaim God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose generosity is as infinite as his love and mercy. We must meditate more on the generosity of God to make it easier for us to discover it, to appreciate it more and more, to be able to talk about it with deep conviction and warmth, and to bear witness to it. The saints, our brothers and sisters in the faith, tell us with their lives how they perceived God’s generosity, and they offer us concrete ways in which we can do the same.

SOURCE: YEAR A DICASTERY NOTES (1999)

The Logic of Compassion and the Miracle of Abundance

2 August 2020  Saint Peter’s Square (Angelus)

This Sunday’s Gospel presents to us the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves (see Matthew 14:13-21). The scene takes place in a deserted place, where Jesus had retired with His disciples. But the people found Him so as to listen to Him and to be healed: indeed, His words and His gestures restore and bring hope.

At sundown, the crowd was still present and the disciples, practical men, invited Jesus to send them away so that they could go and find something to eat. But He answered: “You give them something to eat” (v. 16).

Two Opposing Attitudes: Practicality vs. Providence

We can imagine the disciples’ faces! Jesus was well aware of what He was about to do, but He wanted to change their attitude: not to say, “send them away,” “let them fend for themselves,” “let them find something to eat,” but rather, “what does Providence offer us to share?”

These are two opposite ways of behaving. And Jesus wants to bring them to the second way of behaving because the first proposal is that of the practical person, but is not generous: “send them away so they can go and find, let them fend for themselves.” Jesus thinks another way.

God’s Logic: Taking Responsibility for Others

Jesus wants to use this situation to educate His friends, both then and now, about God’s logic. And what is God’s logic that we see here? The logic of taking responsibility for others. The logic of not washing one’s hands, the logic of not looking the other way. No. The logic of taking responsibility for others. That “let them fend for themselves” should not enter into the Christian vocabulary.

As soon as one of the Twelve says, realistically, “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish”, Jesus answers, “Bring them here to me” (vv. 17-18). He takes the food in His hands, raises His eyes heavenward, recites the blessing and begins to break it and give the pieces to the disciples to hand out. And those loaves and fish did not run out; there was enough, and plenty left over for thousands of people.

A Sign of Charity: The Father’s Generosity

With this gesture, Jesus demonstrates His power; not in a spectacular way but as a sign of charity, of God the Father’s generosity toward His weary and needy children. He is immersed in the life of His people, He understands their fatigue and their limitations, but He does not allow anyone to be lost, or to lose out: He nourishes them with His word and provides food in plenty for sustenance.

The Eucharistic Link: Harmonizing the Spiritual and the Material

In this Gospel passage we can perceive a reference to the Eucharist, especially in the description of the blessing, the breaking of the bread, delivery to the disciples, and distribution to the people (v. 19). It is noteworthy how close the link is between the Eucharistic bread, nourishment for eternal life, and daily bread, necessary for earthly life.

Before offering Himself to the Father as the Bread of salvation, Jesus ensures there is food for those who follow Him and who, in order to be with Him, forgot to make provisions. At times the spiritual and the material are in opposition, but in reality spiritualism, like materialism, is alien to the Bible. It is not biblical language.

True Compassion: Suffering with Others

The compassion and tenderness that Jesus showed towards the crowds is not sentimentality, but rather the concrete manifestation of the love that cares for the people’s needs. And we are called to approach the Eucharistic table with these same attitudes of Jesus: compassion for the needs of others, this word that is repeated in the Gospel when Jesus sees a problem, an illness or these people without food… “He had compassion.” “He had compassion.”

Compassion is not a purely material feeling; true compassion is patire con [to suffer with], to take others’ sorrows on ourselves.

A Call to Self-Examination

Perhaps it would do us good today to ask ourselves:

• Do I feel compassion when I read news about war, about hunger, about the pandemic? So many things…
• Do I feel compassion toward those people?
• Do I feel compassion toward the people who are near to me?
• Am I capable of suffering with them, or do I look the other way, or think “they can fend for themselves”?

Let us not forget this word “compassion,” which is trust in the provident love of the Father, and means courageous sharing.

The Miracle of Sharing
and the Bread of Life

31 July 2011 |  Castel Gandolfo

This Sunday’s Gospel describes the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves that Jesus worked for a great throng of people who had followed him to listen to him and to be healed of various illnesses (cf. Mt 14:14). As evening fell the disciples suggested to Jesus that he send the crowds away so that they might take some refreshment.

But the Lord had something else in mind: “You give them something to eat” (Mt 14:16). However they had “only five loaves… and two fish”. Jesus’ subsequent action evokes the sacrament of the Eucharist: “He looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds” (Mt 14:19).

The Miracle and the Apostolic Mission

The miracle consists in the brotherly sharing of a few loaves which, entrusted to the power of God, not only sufficed for everyone but enough was left over to fill 12 baskets. The Lord asked this of the disciples so that it would be they who distributed the bread to the multitude; in this way he taught and prepared them for their future apostolic mission: in fact, they were to bring to all the nourishment of the Word of life and of the sacraments.

Incarnation and the Work of Redemption

In this miraculous sign the incarnation of God and the work of redemption are interwoven. Jesus, in fact, “went ashore” from the boat to meet the men and women (cf. Mt 14:14). St Maximus the Confessor said that the Word of God made himself present for our sake, by taking flesh, derived from us and conformed to us in all things save sin, in order to expose us to his teaching with words and examples suitable for us” (Ambigua 33: PG 91, 1285 C).

Divine Compassion and the True Hunger of Humanity

Here the Lord offers us an eloquent example of his compassion for people. We are reminded of all our brothers and sisters in the Horn of Africa who in these days are suffering the dramatic consequences of famine, exacerbated by war and by the lack of solid institutions. Christ is attentive to material needs but he wished to give more, because man always “hungers for more, he needs more” (Jesus of Nazareth, Doubleday, New York 2007, p. 267). God’s love is present in the bread of Christ; in the encounter with him “we feed on the living God himself, so to speak, we truly eat the ‘bread from Heaven’” (ibid. p. 268).

The Eucharistic Mystery and the Service of Charity

Dear friends, “in the Eucharist Jesus also makes us witnesses of God’s compassion towards all our brothers and sisters. The Eucharistic mystery thus gives rise to a service of charity towards neighbour” (Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis, n. 88). St Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus whom the Church is commemorating today, also bore witness to this. Indeed Ignatius chose to live “finding God in all things, loving him in all creatures” (cf. Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, III, 1, 26).

“Preach from the housetops”:
The Gospel in the Age of Global Communication

27 May 2001 | 35th WORLD COMMUNICATIONS DAY 

The theme chosen for World Communications Day 2001 echoes the words of Jesus himself. It could not be otherwise, for it is Christ alone whom we preach. We remember his words to his first disciples: “What I tell you in the dark, utter in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim upon the housetops” (Mt 10:27). In the secret of our heart, we have listened to the truth of Jesus; now we must proclaim that truth from the housetops.

In today’s world, housetops are almost always marked by a forest of transmitters and antennae sending and receiving messages of every kind to and from the four corners of the earth. It is vitally important to ensure that among these many messages the word of God is heard. To proclaim the faith from the housetops today means to speak Jesus’ word in and through the dynamic world of communications.

The Church’s Role in a Changing World

In all cultures and at all times—certainly in the midst of today’s global transformations—people ask the same basic questions about the meaning of life: Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going? Why is there evil? What is there after this life? (cf. Fides et Ratio, 1). And in every age the Church offers the one ultimately satisfying answer to the deepest questions of the human heart—Jesus Christ himself, “who fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his high calling” (Gaudium et Spes, 22). Therefore, the voice of Christians can never fall silent, for the Lord has entrusted to us the word of salvation for which every human heart longs. The Gospel offers the pearl of great price for which all are searching (cf. Mt 13:45-46).

It follows that the Church cannot fail to be ever more deeply involved in the burgeoning world of communications. The global communications network is extending and growing more complex by the day, and the media are having an increasingly visible effect on culture and its transmission. Where once the media reported events, now events are often shaped to meet the requirements of the media. Thus, the relationship between reality and the media has grown more intricate, and this is a deeply ambivalent phenomenon. On the one hand, it can blur the distinction between truth and illusion; but on the other, it can open up unprecedented opportunities for making the truth more widely accessible to many more people. The task of the Church is to ensure that it is the latter which actually happens.

Navigating Media Culture and Evangelization

The world of the media can sometimes seem indifferent and even hostile to Christian faith and morality. This is partly because media culture is so deeply imbued with a typically postmodern sense that the only absolute truth is that there are no absolute truths or that, if there were, they would be inaccessible to human reason and therefore irrelevant. In such a view, what matters is not the truth but “the story”; if something is newsworthy or entertaining, the temptation to set aside considerations of truth becomes almost irresistible. As a result, the world of the media can sometimes seem no more friendly an environment for evangelization than the pagan world of the Apostles’ day. But just as the early witnesses to the Good News did not retreat when faced with opposition, neither should Christ’s followers do so today. The cry of Saint Paul echoes among us still: “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel” (1 Cor 9:16).

Yet, as much as the world of the media may at times seem at odds with the Christian message, it also offers unique opportunities for proclaiming the saving truth of Christ to the whole human family. Consider, for instance, satellite telecasts of religious ceremonies which often reach a global audience, or the positive capacities of the Internet to carry religious information and teaching beyond all barriers and frontiers. Such a wide audience would have been beyond the wildest imaginings of those who preached the Gospel before us. What is therefore needed in our time is an active and imaginative engagement of the media by the Church. Catholics should not be afraid to throw open the doors of social communications to Christ, so that his Good News may be heard from the housetops of the world!

The Mission Ad Gentes and the Prophetic Task

It is vital too that at the beginning of this new millennium we keep in mind the mission ad gentes which Christ has entrusted to the Church. An estimated two thirds of the world’s six billion people do not in any real sense know Jesus Christ; and many of them live in countries with ancient Christian roots, where entire groups of the baptized have lost a living sense of the faith, or no longer consider themselves members of the Church and live lives far removed from the Lord and his Gospel (cf. Redemptoris Missio, 33). Certainly, an effective response to this situation involves much more than the media; but in striving to meet the challenge Christians cannot possibly ignore the world of social communications. Indeed, media of every kind can play an essential role in direct evangelization and in bringing to people the truths and values which support and enhance human dignity. The Church’s presence in the media is in fact an important aspect of the inculturation of the Gospel demanded by the new evangelization to which the Holy Spirit is summoning the Church throughout the world.

As the whole Church seeks to heed the Spirit’s call, Christian communicators have “a prophetic task, a vocation: to speak out against the false gods and idols of the day—materialism, hedonism, consumerism, narrow nationalism…” (Ethics in Communications, 31). Above all, they have the duty and privilege to declare the truth—the glorious truth about human life and human destiny revealed in the Word made flesh. May Catholics involved in the world of social communications preach the truth of Jesus ever more boldly and joyfully from the housetops, so that all men and women may hear about the love which is the heart of God’s self-communication in Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever (cf. Heb 13:8).