Humans don’t live on bread alone, but it sure is important. Jesus and the Gospel writers likely understood this. Their audiences certainly would have, which is why Jesus performs this miracle of feeding the masses twice. Stuck between large landlords, Roman officials, temple authorities, and tax collectors, daily bread was far from assured for the common people of ancient Palestine. In this Gospel reading Jesus’s apostles urge their rabbi to dismiss the crowd so they can fend for themselves and find food and lodging, but Jesus responds differently and reveals to us the heart of Christian direct action. When confronted with the hungry, feed them. While Jesus’s ministry was obviously concerned with people’s spiritual well-being, we miss a key part of his ministry if we ignore his concerns for people’s physical needs. If we see Jesus’s miracles of healing and feeding simply as signs to save souls, we miss part of Jesus’s message of salvation. 

We live in a time of incitement against the poor. With a billionaire slashing social services and an emboldened fascist movement who openly disdain the homeless and call themselves Christian, prospects appear bleak. This is why it is more important than ever for us to understand Jesus’s message of direct action. While we often focus on things Jesus said, there is an important message in what is not said in this passage. Nowhere does anyone express gratitude. I note this because a refrain I frequently hear is how the poor are ungrateful for help they are given, which tells me far more about the person speaking and what they think other children of God deserve than anything about the poor. I agree with the great Leveller Gerrard Winstanley that the earth was created as a “common treasury” for all and all of God’s creation has a right to draw their sustenance from it. I also believe all people are entitled to their basic necessities – food, shelter, healthcare. As such, how can I demand someone thank me for giving them something I believe they deserve? 

This is reflected not just by the community Christ’s apostles established after his ascension, but by Old Testament prophets like Isaiah who demonstrated a marked concern for the poor. In Isaiah Chapter 55, the prophet gives us an invitation: “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.” While this is normally taken in a spiritual sense, I believe it also applies in a material sense. It shows God’s gratuitous love for us and his open generosity in the bounty he provides for us. And not only should we have a right to the bounty God provides for us, but it should be nourishing as well. Isaiah asks, “Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare.” One of our friends here at the Catholic Worker, Dr. Jim Robinson of Iona University, made this exact point at a recent Friday night meeting about factory farming when he pointed out the poor not only deserve food, but they deserve nutritious food.

This comes from an understanding that for people to flourish spiritually, their basic needs first must be met. After all, it is difficult for most people to focus on their relationship with God when they are worried about finding their next meal. We also see this in Jesus’s ministry. When Christ heals someone or feeds the needy, he doesn’t first chastise them about their lack of piety, but gives freely. And this appears in sharp contrast with Christ’s contemporaries like the Pharisees obsessed with the law, or the Rich man who ignores the starving and ailing Lazarus at his gate.  

These community values of common ownership and direct action have been embodied by “base communities” all over the world. Originally given the name Comunidades Eclesiales de Base, base communities emerged in Latin America in the 1960s in a time of military dictatorships and extreme inequality. Base communities typically involved a priest dedicated to living amongst the people and bringing the oppressed together for mutual aid and collective action to address their needs. 

A priest who exemplified this approach was Ernesto Cardenal who established a base community in the remote Nicaraguan village of Solentiname during the reign of the Somoza family dictatorship. Base communities like Cardenal’s are important for us because they show how to connect the importance of material bread and Christ, the bread of life. Cardenal’s community did not simply focus on mutual aid, but also focused on the spiritual well-being of the community, and bringing their faith to bear on their daily lives. Cardenal not only provided religious services, but he held dialogical discussions on scripture where his congregation interpreted reading, drew out lessons, and applied these lessons to their material situation. 

When the resistance group, the Sandinistas began, many of the campesinos in Cardenal’s base community sympathized with and joined the guerillas. Throughout the revolution, Cardenal’s community would remain active supporters of Sandinistas, and Cardenal was even appointed Minister of Culture under the new revolutionary government. Cardenal provides an excellent example of solidarity. He recognized the connection between the physical and spiritual in human flourishing and integrated that into his ministry. And, importantly, these weren’t things that he determined himself, but arrived at through dialogue with his people. This dialogue led him and his people to the revolution.  

Image description: Under green, leafy branches, people in colorful clothing are gathered dancing, playing music, playing games, and discussion together at a table. Ernesto Cardenal is depicted with his characteristic beret leading a discussion.