a world in need of a miracle

In today's Gospel, Jesus is moved with pity for the crowd gathered around him and before we know it, the miracle of the loaves of fishes has happened. All were fed, and what started as 7 loaves and a few fish ended up filling 7 baskets full.

I love the version of this story in the movie Millions, told by St. Peter to the child-hero of the film. It goes like this ... (courtesy of some kind soul who transcribed the entire script and posted it online)

St. Peter: "Anyway, this kid comes up to us, about your size, … with these loaves and fishes. Sardines. And Jesus blesses them and passes the plate round. Now the first person he passes it to, passes it on. He doesn't take anything. He just passes it on. Do you know why? Because he had a piece of lamb hidden in his pocket. And as he is passing the fish, he sneaks a bit of meat out and pretends he's taken it off the plate. Do you see what I'm saying? And the next person exactly the same story. Every single one of them has their own food. And every one of them is keeping it quiet. Looking after number one. But as that plate went round with the sardines on it, they all got their own food out and started to share. And then that plate went all the way round and back to Jesus and it'd still got the fish and the loaves on it. I think Jesus was a bit taken aback. He says, 'what happened? 'And I just said 'miracle'. And at first I thought I'd fooled him. But now I see it was a miracle, one of his best. But this little kid had stood up and everybody there just got bigger."

I love this "eyewitness" account. I know it's an unorthodox interpretation, but I think we can learn alot from it. Especially given this article that my brother sent my way: "Richest 2 Percent Own Half the World." Seems to me there's a lot of sharing and getting bigger to be done.

Happy Advent.