YOU GIVE US OUR FOOD

4 AUGUST 2025

MONDAY OF THE EIGHTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

JOHN MARY VIANNEY, Priest 

YOU GIVE US OUR FOOD

Introduction

      The first reading in the 18th and the 19th weeks is taken from the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy. It describes the journey of God’s people through the desert, with the trials of the difficult journey, the temptations of discouragement, lack of faith and trust, material and materialistic needs, infidelities, complaints. We have to learn to place them in the context of our own itinerary through life as Christians, our own deserts with temptations, difficulties and grumbling.

      We know that an immense number of people in many places of the world have not enough to eat today. Many others have plenty to eat, and yet they are hungry, for people do not live on bread alone: they are in need of peace and love, they hunger for justice and appreciation; they are in need of God. We, Jesus’ disciples today, cannot remain indifferent to these hungers, for Jesus has told us: “Give them something to eat yourselves.” If we share the little we have, the kingdom of God is among us.

Here we have a priest, a humble country man, with very limited abilities for book learning, yet a contemplative, open to the Spirit and things supernatural, a real man of God (1786-1859). He was made the parish priest in a God-forgotten little town, where he could do little wrong. And no wrong he did. After a few years, everyone knew where the little town of Ars was, and the learned and the great as well as the poor and the little one came to seek his counsel, absolution and help. When his ordination was discussed, he said: “If Samson could defeat and kill a thousand Philistines with a donkeys’ jawbone, who knows what the Lord could do with a whole donkey like me?” 

Opening Prayer

God, our compassionate Father,
you let your Son Jesus Christ give food
to all who are hungry in any way.
Make us compassionate for all the poor of our day.
Teach us to see their needs,
to suffer with them, to share in their anguish,
to bind their wounds and to appease their hungers.
Give us the strength to do all this
by the strength of the food of himself
that Jesus gives us in each eucharist.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Reading 1: Nm 11:4b-15

The children of Israel lamented,
“Would that we had meat for food!
We remember the fish we used to eat without cost in Egypt,
and the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks,
the onions, and the garlic.
But now we are famished;
we see nothing before us but this manna.”

Manna was like coriander seed and had the color of resin.
When they had gone about and gathered it up,
the people would grind it between millstones or pound it in a mortar,
then cook it in a pot and make it into loaves,
which tasted like cakes made with oil.
At night, when the dew fell upon the camp, the manna also fell.

When Moses heard the people, family after family,
crying at the entrance of their tents,
so that the LORD became very angry, he was grieved.
“Why do you treat your servant so badly?” Moses asked the LORD.
“Why are you so displeased with me
that you burden me with all this people?
Was it I who conceived all this people?
Or was it I who gave them birth,
that you tell me to carry them at my bosom,
like a foster father carrying an infant,
to the land you have promised under oath to their fathers?
Where can I get meat to give to all this people?
For they are crying to me,
‘Give us meat for our food.’
I cannot carry all this people by myself,
for they are too heavy for me.
If this is the way you will deal with me,
then please do me the favor of killing me at once,
so that I need no longer face this distress.”

Responsorial Psalm: Ps 81:12-13, 14-15, 16-17

R.(2a)Sing with joy to God our help.

"My people heard not my voice,
and Israel obeyed me not;
So I gave them up to the hardness of their hearts;
they walked according to their own counsels."

R. Sing with joy to God our help.

"If only my people would hear me,
and Israel walk in my ways,
Quickly would I humble their enemies;
against their foes I would turn my hand."

R. Sing with joy to God our help.

"Those who hated the LORD would seek to flatter me,
but their fate would endure forever,
While Israel I would feed with the best of wheat,
and with honey from the rock I would fill them."

R. Sing with joy to God our help.

Alleluia: Mt 4:4

Alleluia, alleluia.
One does not live on bread alone,
but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel: Mt 14:13-21

When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist,
he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself.
The crowds heard of this and followed him on foot from their towns.
When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd,
his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick.
When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said,
"This is a deserted place and it is already late;
dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages
and buy food for themselves."
He said to them, "There is no need for them to go away;
give them some food yourselves."
But they said to him,
"Five loaves and two fish are all we have here."
Then he said, "Bring them here to me,"
and he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass.
Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven,
he said the blessing, broke the loaves,
and gave them to the disciples,
who in turn gave them to the crowds.
They all ate and were satisfied,
and they picked up the fragments left over–
twelve wicker baskets full.
Those who ate were about five thousand men,
not counting women and children.

Intercessions

–   For the pope, bishops and priests, that they may satisfy the people’s hungers for love and justice, for truth and hope by proclaiming with conviction and love the Lord’s message of the good news, we pray:

–   For the political leaders of the world, for scientists and economists, that they may cooperate to solve the problem of hunger in the world and bring to a hungry world not only food but also dignity, justice and peace, we pray:

–   For the sick and the lonely, for the handicapped and those who are discouraged, for those who hunger for love and acceptance, that our love and concern may be signs to them that God does not abandon them, we pray:

Prayer over the Gifts

God our Father,
we give you thanks for bread and wine
and for making them the signs
of your Son’s presence in our midst.
Through him we bring before you
the hungers and aspirations of all.
Let him multiply here for us
the bread of life to make us strong
and the wine of joy to give us hope.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Prayer after Communion

God our Father,
through the bread of life
of your Son Jesus Christ
multiply in us the capacity to love.
Give us the courage to put into practice
the words spoken to us by your Son:
“You yourselves give people to eat.”
Help us to share our food with them
but also our joy and compassion,
our hopes and our love.
We ask this in the name of Jesus the Lord.

Blessing

That Jesus is sharing the food of himself with us in the eucharist is for us a double sign: that we have to care for the hungry and do what we can to help them, and second, that we too commit ourselves to one another, putting ourselves at the service of one another. May almighty God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Commentary

Running away is not an option

To run away from disturbing and frustrating life situations is a natural human tendency. When faced with a burdensome relationship, setbacks in professional life, our natural reaction would be to run away from them. This is what we find in the response of the disciples in today’s gospel: That the crowd was too large and, time was too late and they were in a deserted a place – they did not want to take up the burden of finding food for all those people. So, they suggest to Jesus: Dismiss the crowds and let them find food for themselves.

It looks quite normal to us, because the disciples are our representatives, who think and behave like us. While explaining the passage in the Gospel according to John, Fr. Armellini said, Jesus sees the multitude, he sees the needs of the hungry; and he gives a clear invitation to his disciples as well to look up from our little world, from our interests, and become aware of the reality in which so many of our brothers and sisters who live in hunger, in misery, who are desperate, and suffer violence. This is not the world that God wanted.

Jesus has seen the hunger of humanity; hungry not only of food, but of all the needs that must be satisfied to be fully human. The life of the sick person is not fully human, neither is the life of the lonely, the abandoned, the one who lacks affection, the one who faces injustice, the one who has no home, no job, the one who cannot form a family. How to respond to all these forms of hunger so that humanity be satiated?

That’s why the disciples suggest to Jesus: It is beyond our capabilities to handle. Ask these people to go away and buy their own food. Sending them away would be our safest option, so that we don’t have to worry about where would they find food, at what price, would there be someone who could not afford to buy; would there be people who would buy more and store up their tomorrows and thus there would be no more food for others to buy…

Material goods are a temptation; our instinct tells us to take possession of them, to accumulate them, to keep them for ourselves, at most to share them with our family members, but then, even in the family, when it comes to money, divisions and disagreements begin. The first letter to Timothy says that the greed of money is the root of all the evils in the world.

Today’s miracle of feeding the 5000 teaches us one simple truth: The wealth or treasures that we have in our hands do not belong to us. Everything belongs to God, and we are administering goods that are not ours.

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4 August 2025

John Maria Vianney

Matthew 14:13-21

Bread in Christ’s hands

In today’s Gospel, we are invited to rediscover a well-known passage—not as a miracle of multiplication, but as a parable of compassion, sharing, and the beginning of a new world. Jesus, moved by deep compassion for the sick and broken humanity before him, invites the disciples to do more than just sympathise. He invites them to act. "Give them something to eat yourselves."

This simple command challenges the logic of the old world, where the hungry are told to fend for themselves, where only those with means are served, and where the needs of the weakest are overlooked. Jesus proposes something new: a world not built on buying and selling, but on self-giving and sharing. When the disciples offer the little they have, Jesus blesses it and gives it back—not to the crowd directly—but to the disciples to distribute. The miracle is not the creation of bread from nothing, but the transformation of hearts from fear to generosity, from selfishness to communion.

St. John Mary Vianney, whose memorial we celebrate today, lived this Gospel with simplicity and conviction. In his small parish of Ars, he broke the bread of Christ's mercy daily—through confession, Eucharist, and tireless love. Like the disciples in the Gospel, he offered what little he had, and God made it fruitful.

In every Eucharist, Jesus takes our lives, blesses them, and gives them back so we may share ourselves with others. When we follow his example—living not for ourselves but for the good of others—we see the dawn of the new world Jesus came to bring. The bread truly becomes broken for all. May we, like St. John Vianney, become bread in Christ’s hands, given for the life of the world.

Bread in Christ’s hands - Youtube