In expounding holy Scriptures, I am, so to speak, now breaking bread for you. If you hunger to receive it, your heart will sing out with the fullness of praise.^[1] And if you are thus made rich in your banquet, why would you then be niggardly in good works and deeds of mercy? What I am distributing to you is not my own. What you feast upon, I also feast upon.

Grant, Lord, that I and those dear to me

May together there

Find the very last remnants of your gift! HYMNS

Are you hungry? You too have been given these baskets. For those fragments were not lost. For you, too, belong to the whole church, and they are surely for your benefit.

From the lesser number of men [four thou-sand^[1]], less remains; from the greater number [five thousand^[2]], more is left over.^[3] Four thousand men—fewer certainly in number, but greater in faith. The one who is greater in faith eats more, and because he does, there is less left over! I wish that we, too, might eat more of the hardy bread of holy writ, so that there would be less left over for us to learn.

After his account of the miracle of the seven loaves, Mark subjoins the same transition as is given us in Matthew, only with this difference: Matthew’s expression for the locality is not Dalmanutha, as is read in certain codices, but Magedan.^[1] There is no reason, however, for questioning the fact that it is the same place that is intended under both names. For most codices,^[2] even of Mark’s Gospel, give no other reading than that of Magedan.

But for what sign from heaven were they asking? Maybe that he should hold back the sun, or curb the moon, or bring down thunderbolts, or change the direction of the wind, or something like that? . . . In Pharaoh’s time there was an enemy from whom deliverance was needed.^[1] But for one who comes among friends, there should be no need of such signs. GOSPEL OF ST.

No sign more impressed the crowds than the miracles of the loaves. Not only did they want to follow him, but also seemed ready to make him a king.^[1] In order to avoid all suspicion of usurping civil authority, he made a speedy exit after this wonderful work. He did not even leave on foot, lest they chase after him, but took off by boat. GOSPEL OF ST.

It was not to learn faith that they [the Pharisees] sought him, but to seize him. GOSPEL OF ST.

Can you hear the intense displeasure in his voice? For nowhere else does he appear to have rebuked them so strongly. Why now? In order to cast out their prejudices about clean foods.^[1] . . . For not everywhere is permissiveness a good thing. As he earlier had allowed them to speak freely, now he reproves them. . . . He even reminds them of the specific numbers of loaves and of persons fed, both to bring them to recall the past, and to make them more attentive to the future. GOSPEL OF ST.

They came, then, to Bethsaida, into the village of Andrew and Peter, James and John. Bethsaida means house of fishers, and, in truth, from this house, hunters and fishermen are sent into the whole world. Ponder the text. The historical facts are clear, the literal sense is obvious. But we must now search into its spiritual message. That he came to Bethsaida, that there was a blind man there, that he departed, what is there remarkable about all that? Nothing, but what he did there is great; striking, however, only if it should take place today, for we have ceased to wonder about such things.

Watch this very carefully. Note exactly what is said. In the home village of the apostles, there is a blind man. In the very place where the apostles were born there is blindness. Do you grasp what I am saying? This blind man in the very home of the apostles is like the lost covenant people of Israel.

So too he placed mud upon you, that is, modesty, prudence, and consideration of your frailty. . . . You went, you washed, you came to the altar, you began to see what you had not seen before.^[1] This means: Through the font of the Lord and the preaching of the Lord’s passion, your eyes were then opened. You who seemed before to have been blind in heart began to see the light of the sacraments.

Christ laid his hands upon his eyes that he might see all things clearly, so through visible things he might understand things invisible, which the eye has not seen, that after the film of sin is removed, he might clearly behold the state of his soul with the eye of a clean heart.^[1]

How, then, is his house not in Bethsaida? Note the text exactly. If we consider the literal interpretation only, it does not make any sense. If this blind man is found in Bethsaida and is taken out and cured, and he is commanded: Return to your own house, certainly, he is bid: Return to Bethsaida. If, however, he returns there, what is the meaning of the command: Do not go into the village? You see, therefore, that the interpretation is symbolic. He is led out from the house of the Jews, from the village, from the law, from the traditions of the Jews. He who could not be cured in the law is cured in the grace of the gospel. It is said to him, Return to your own house—not into the house that you think, the one from which he came out, but into the house that was also the house of Abraham, since Abraham is the father of those who believe.^[1]