Saturday of the 5th Week of the Year

The sin of our first parents resulted in their expulsion from Eden and humanity’s tragic exile and alienation from God. It was to undo the disastrous effects of their disobedience that the Father sent his Son to redeem us. Today’s gospel gives a symbolic sign of this redemption. For in the feeding of the four thousand with more bread than they could eat, we witness the reversal of the curse Adam received when told that by the sweat of your face shall you get bread to eat. This is a timely reminder that the work of our redemption has been accomplished and that, even now, we can begin to share in that eternal life that will be ours in its fullness when we pass from this present world of time and space. To the degree that we do, we bring a little bit of heaven into this suffering world and cast a little light on its present darkness and confusion becoming—to use a related bread metaphor—that holy leaven that permeates this world as yeast the dough. And so Pope Saint John XXIII can exhort: “Every believer, in this, our world, must be a spark of light, a center of love, a vivifying ferment in the dough: He will be so to the degree that, in his innermost being, he lives in communion with God. In fact, there can be no peace among men if there is no peace in each one of them.