Wednesday, May 21(8), 2025
Acts 13:13-24;12; Jn. 6:5-14                                                      

The disciples asked the Lord to send the people away, so that they could buy food for themselves in surrounding villages, but the Lord said: “They need not depart; give ye them to eat” [Mt. 14:16].  That happened before the miracle of feeding five thousand men, beside women and children, with five loaves and two fishes. 

This event was of a special importance in the life of the Lord; it has also a symbolical meaning as follows.  The people whom the Lord fed is an image of the entire mankind which hunger and thirst after the truth.  When the Lord told His disciples, “Give ye them to eat”, he foretold them their future duty of service to the mankind ─ of feeding men with the truth.  The apostles were the first to do that; at the later times that duty was passed over to their successors ─ to the pastors of the Church. 

The Lord is calling the pastors of our days as well: “Give ye your people to eat”.  And the pastors should take it to the heart to feed the people with truth.  Sermons should never stop in our churches: a silent pastor is no pastor at all ─ and yet our pastors are silent far too often, silent beyond any measure.  To be sure, it is not happening because of faithlessness: it is just an error, a bad custom ─ though this is not an excuse for silence.

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