Jesus: Food for the Hungry

On the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes (Feb. 11), the daily Gospel happen to be the Feeding of the Five Thousand (Mark 8:1-10). A gospel passage like this makes us reflect on the reality of hunger in the world. Maybe we ourselves do not experience hunger, but certainly someone in our neighborhood is hungry this very moment. In Africa, a child or perhaps hundreds of children are dying because of hunger. The recent Ultra stampede which killed 74 people is just another instance of how hunger has become a life-and-death situation in this country.

How can a feast like this spur us to address this urgent problem? How can devotion to the the Blessed Mother move us from pious rites and rituals to a real concern and concrete action for our hungry brothers and sisters? Perhaps we can ask how Mary has become blessed by all generations and among all women. What has she done for the millions of hungry children and people all over the world?

I don't know if the answer: "She has brought Jesus to the world" will convince you. But isn't it true that if, like Mary, we bring Jesus to our hungry brothers and sisters, we can not but give them something to eat, or teach them to find something to eat. Because when Jesus Himself saw the crowds who were exhausted and hungry, He had compassion for them and He did something to feed them.

What to do in the face of hunger in the world? As Mary did, bring Jesus to the world that is hungry, yes for physical food, but more so, for spiritual food, Jesus Himself.