Today in our gospel we see that Jesus and the apostles have a little economic crisis on their hands.  There is a vast number of people to feed and few resources with which to feed them.  Jesus gives Philip a little exam in economics when he asks him, “Where can we buy enough food to feed all the people?”  Jesus is aware of our human tendency to measure the possibilities for our future by the standards of a market economy.  Do we have enough money to buy what we need for life?  If not where can we get this money?  What happens when we are faced with a shortage of commodities?  Today Andrew identifies a young boy who has five barley loaves and two fish, not rich fare but given that there is a limited supply available for the people and the demand is great, then these few loaves can be turned into gold.  What should be done in this situation?

      In situations like Elisha and Jesus faces today with the apostles we encounter the social teachings of the Church which have just been a subject for the Holy Father, Pope Benedict’s encyclical, Caritas in Veritate.  Pope Benedict reminds us in his introduction, “All people feel the interior impulse to love authentically: love and truth never abandon them completely, because these are the vocation planted by God in the heart and mind of every human person.  The search for love and truth is purified and liberated by Jesus Christ from the impoverishment that our humanity brings to it, and he reveals to us in all its fullness the initiative of love and the plan for true life that God has prepared for us. In Christ, charity in truth becomes the Face of his Person, a vocation for us to love our brothers and sisters in the truth of his plan.”

     The Holy Father emphasizes two of the main criteria that govern moral action: justice and the common good.  These two principles have become increasingly impoverished and lost in our society today.  We tend to think only of justice for ourselves and the private good of individuals who make demands upon society based upon constructed “rights” that they demand for themselves.

     Pope Benedict speaks about justice as “the minimum measure” and a charity which carries us beyond justice:  “Charity goes beyond justice, because to love is to give, to offer what is “mine” to the other; but it never lacks justice, which prompts us to give the other what is “his”, what is due to him by reason of his being or his acting.  I cannot “give” what is mine to the other, without first giving him what pertains to him in justice.  If we love others with charity, then first of all we are just towards them…Charity transcends justice and completes it in the logic of giving and forgiving.  The earthly city is promoted not merely by relationships of rights and duties, but to an even greater and more fundamental extent by relationships of gratuitousness, mercy and communion.”

     In regard to the common good the Holy Father writes, “To love someone is to desire that person’s good and to take effective steps to secure it.  Besides the good of the individual, there is a good that is linked to living in society: the common good.  It is the good of “all of us”, made up of individuals, families and intermediate groups who together constitute society.  It is a good that is sought not for its own sake, but for the people who belong to the social community and who can only really and effectively pursue their good within it.  To desire the common good and strive towards it is a requirement of justice and charity.”

     In the context of this crisis of need that faces Jesus today he performs Eucharistic actions in taking the bread, blessing it, breaking it and distributing it to the many.  The Eucharist which gives us the Bread of Life teaches us that everything is a gift and grace that comes from God the Father and that it is destined for the common good of all peoples.  I can never achieve a true good at the expense of the good of my brothers and sisters.  “The unity of the human race, a fraternal communion transcending every barrier, is called into being by the word of God-who-is-Love.”  We cannot see the world merely as a collection of individuals who are all competing for the use of limited resources but rather the Eucharist calls us beyond that into seeing the world as a communion of brothers and sisters who share in the goods of creation and the blessings of God.  We make room for a “principle of gratuitousness” and recognize the superabundance that comes to us from God’s blessings and love.  Today the people in Elisha’s time and in Jesus’ are all fed and given all they need and there is even an abundance left over.  Jesus does not allow the people to make him a king and give into totalitarian thinking but rather remains rooted in love and calls all people to a fraternal communion in mercy and love.