Growing up, my family had a few cows. I will always remember one of them; her name was Annabelle. She was a pretty cow. Annabelle had beautiful red fur, two tiny nubs for horns, and was very sweet. She loved the taste of freshly mowed grass. Every time we mowed, I would pick up piles of grass and offer them to her. She ate it right out of my hands. She would even let me rub her head and pet her. Eventually, Annabelle had two calves, a boy and a girl. I named them Mickey and Minnie. Even though they were a bit skittish, I slowly got to where I could feed and pet them as well. Then, one day, Mickey was taken away. A few days later Mickey returned, wrapped in butcher paper and ready for grilling. I stopped naming the cows that day.
Each of us lives by consuming life—plants and animals alike. This unsettling reality whispers into our hearts that life is scarce, that we must guard fiercely what little we have. We erect barriers around our possessions, our communities, and even our hearts, fearing others might diminish the life we so carefully hoard. It is fear of scarcity that fosters exclusion, prejudice, and violence. We become convinced that welcoming others means losing something vital for ourselves.
Yet, Jesus addresses this very fear. Faced with thousands of hungry people, the disciples worry about scarcity: “Five loaves and two fish are all we have.” But Jesus confidently tells them, “Give them some food yourselves.” Here is a powerful challenge: the disciples must move from the fear of not having enough toward an act of radical trust in God’s abundance.
Jesus takes those few loaves and fish, blesses them, breaks them, and gives them away, transforming scarcity into overwhelming abundance. Everyone eats and is satisfied, with baskets left over. This miracle points beyond mere physical nourishment—it reveals God’s endless generosity, where life is not something we must steal or guard, but something freely given and abundantly available.
This generosity reaches its fullness in the Eucharist, where Christ gives us his very self. Under the appearance of bread, we receive the flesh of God, offered freely so that we no longer need to take life out of fear. Here, life is not scarce but infinite, freely available to all who come seeking nourishment. At this altar, our fear is transformed into trust, our hoarding into sharing, our divisions into unity.
But receiving this gift demands something of us. To eat from Christ’s table, we must abandon the old mindset of scarcity. We cannot embrace infinite generosity while holding tightly onto fear or exclusion. To partake in the Bread of Life, we must open our hearts and communities to others, trusting that God’s abundance means there is more than enough for everyone.
Jesus invites each of us today to move from fear to faith, from hoarding to generosity. We do not need to build walls or marginalize others to secure life for ourselves; Christ has already secured it abundantly and eternally. This miraculous feeding of thousands reminds us that, in God’s kingdom, no one must be turned away, and no one leaves hungry.