A large crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick.
Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples.
The Jewish feast of Passover was near.
When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowd was coming to him, he said to Philip, "Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?"
He said this to test him, because he himself knew what he was going to do.
Philip answered him, "Two hundred days' wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little."
One of his disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him, "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?"
Jesus said, "Have the people recline." Now there was a great deal of grass in that place. So the men reclined, about five thousand in number.
Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were reclining, and also as much of the fish as they wanted.
When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, "Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted."
So they collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat.
When the people saw the sign he had done, they said, "This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world."
Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off to make him king,
he withdrew again to the mountain alone.
REFLECTION
Philip answered him, "Two hundred days' wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little."
Philip was asking a practical question. He is shown to us like a practical man through the Gospels: He was from Bethsaida, the same town of Andrew and Peter (Jn 1:44), he told Nathaniel about Jesus (Jn 1:45), he bore a Greek name, so he told Jesus some Greeks wanted to talk to Him (Jn 12:21-22), and asked Jesus to show him the Father (Jn 14:8-9).
Jesus asking Philip to figure out how to feed all these people was not a trap, a test maybe, but not a trap. Philip figured in his head how much it would be to feed all the people and knew it will be an impossible task given their economical and practical situation as they were away from any town (Mt 14:15)
How much is 200 day's or wages worth? Today, the Federal minimum wage is $7.25 USD per hour. So (7.25 x 8 hours) x 200 days = $11, 600.00 USD.
At a minimum, a catering drop-off meal will be about $15 per person. So 15 x 5000 = $75,000.00. And that is not counting women and children who most definitely were accompanying the 5000 men. So it was a lot of money they most likely didn't have.
We do have to be practical and wise in our everyday lives. However, there are situations where we think a task is impossible, and cannot be accomplished because of the lack of means of any kind. That is when we most need to trust in God and pray to Him to help us. Specially when He is asking us to help Him.
Just a month ago, while organizing our 2024 Conference, we knew we did not have enough money to cover the costs of the conference. However, we knew how important it would be to move forward and to continue organizing it, booking the retreat center, getting the plane tickets for our guest speaker Fr. Naqash and for Fr. Michael, catering dinner, preparing meals and snacks, conference booklets, printing flyers, etc. We prayed and pushed forward.
Pretty much at the very last minute donations came through and we were able to cover the expenses of the conference from sources we did not expect.
Was there a multiplication because of the Conference? I hope so. We learned about the simple faith of the people of Pakistan and their struggles in their day to day life. It made me understand that "my problems" are really "first world problems". I saw the sacrifice of the members that helped organize the Conference, and of those who attended. The multiplication was not of knowledge, but of faith, and its fruits.
Have you ever been in a situation where you knew you had to push through regardless of obstacles? Did you pray and put your trust in God? Has He multiplied something for you?
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