Радио ВЕРА - Евангелие от Луки, Глава 9, стихи 12-18. о. Стефан Домусчи - текст песни, слова, перевод, видео

Luke 9:12-18

12 Now the day began to decline. And the twelve came to him and said, Send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages and countryside round about and spend the night, and get food; for we are here in a desert place.

13 But he said to them, Give you them something to eat. They said, We have no more than five loaves and two fish; shall we go and buy food for all this people?

14 For they were about five thousand men. But he said to his disciples, Make them sit down in companies of fifty.

15 And they did so, and they all sat down.

16 Then he took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, blessed them, and brake them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the multitude.

17 And they ate, and were all filled; and they took up twelve baskets of fragments that remained to them.

18 And it came to pass, when he was praying in a private place, and the disciples were with him, that he asked them, Who do the people say that I am?

Priest Stefan Domusci comments.

In today's Gospel reading, we see the apostles who, while visibly caring for their neighbors, in fact wish to relieve themselves of responsibility by sending people to the nearest villages. We also see Christ, who encourages them to do the impossible: to feed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish. And we see how the disciples take the bread that he blessed and a miracle occurs. A miracle so abundant that there is not only enough bread, but there is an abundance.

One can argue for a long time whether this is really possible. Someone will say that it was not the loaves that multiplied, but that everyone simply took out of their knapsacks the provisions that they had taken with them? Some will say that all this is some kind of image that should show the readers the greatness of Christ.

And yet, for people who believe that God created the world out of nothing, it should not be difficult to believe in the reality of today's story. However, reading this story, like any other in the Gospel, first of all, it is worth considering how it relates to our lives?

And what if we were in the disciples' place? The situation they faced did not seem difficult to them, because it did not directly relate to them, the solution to the problem was not their responsibility, because the people themselves followed Christ, themselves stayed until the evening and now had to go to neighboring villages in order to eat and settle down for the night. And so they approach Christ and ask him for an obvious thing - to let the people go. But Christ acts completely differently. For some reason, he calls them to perceive other people's problems as their own and feed the people themselves. Maybe because God treats people's problems in this way? After all, humanly speaking, the consequences of Adam and Eve's sin were also their personal tragedy. God did not lead them to this and is not to blame for the fact that they acted the way they did. And yet He does not abandon people, because He had a different Purpose when creating the world. God intervenes in the history of the world not because He wants to make someone good by force, but because He loves and wants to help.

But a natural question arises: is it possible to solve the problems of the whole world? And does the world itself want God to help it in this decision?

In fact, if we look closely, we will see that God does this not as crudely as it may seem to us. Often this help is carried out as a supporting presence, or an offer to help... Situations are different, but the main thing that God never does is that He does not pass by and does not tell a person that the existing problem is only his problem. He does not do anything by force, leaving the choice to the person. But a person must know that he has this choice.