When this story begins, Jesus has just learned of the murder of his cousin John at the order of Herod. He wants to be alone for a while. But, as always, the needs of the broken world intrude upon his solitude. Great crowds pour out of the towns and follow him to the isolated place to which he has withdrawn. Instead of sending them away, he has compassion on them and moves among them, healing the sick.

At the end of that long day, the disciples want him to dismiss the crowds, but Jesus, in his boundless mercy, wants not only to heal them but also to feed them. The miracle by which he accomplishes this is, as usual, so quiet and achieved by such indirection that it’s possible the crowds themselves don't notice it anymore than the guests at the wedding at Cana knew that he had turned water into wine.

“Not counting women and children,” about five thousand men ate of the mysteriously multiplied loaves and fishes. “And all ate and were filled,” with twelve basketfuls left over. Even the “no-account” women and children had plenty. Jesus fed them all.

A woman likely had prepared and sent the five loaves and two fishes, probably as lunch for a child. The miraculous abundance begins with a humble, small, ridiculously inadequate offering from among the “discounted” for whom Jesus always has compassion: women, children, the poor, sick, blind, lame.

If we too offer Jesus all that we have, however humble, small, ridiculously inadequate it seems, he will work wonders with it. In divine humility, God uses us—“you give them something to eat,” Jesus tells the disciples—and uses created things—even barley loaves and little fish—to accomplish redemptive purposes.