…When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” (John 6:5).
I read Angela’s Ashes, a memoir of Frank McCourt, an Irish American, in which he vividly and dramatically portrayed his early childhood in Ireland. Because of his father’s alcoholism and the bad economic situation, the boy, while growing up in his teenage years often faced rather an empty plate on the table. His life in Limerick City in the 1930s and 1940s was described in the memoir as completely impoverished. The hungry boy, I recall, therefore often turned to God to ask for bread and potatoes to fill his empty stomach. What a miserable life!
Towards the end of 2008, the world was hit globally, this time, with a severe financial crisis. The 2008 financial crisis was considered by many economists to be the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression in 1930. In 2008, I was stationed in Box Hill, Melbourne and taught the Scriptures in Yarra Theological Union. Box Hill in particular and Australia in general, I recall, were not hit hard by the 2008 financial crisis as California and the US were. So, I returned to California for my home leave in December of the same year. And guess what? I unexpectedly encountered numerous pallid, worried and pensive faces roaming on the roads of California, and surprisingly found myself in many empty shopping malls during the peak times of the Christmas season, a rather strange phenomenon in the US during holiday seasons. Only at that moment did I start owning the first-hand experience of how severe the global crisis hit the US and her people. What’s more, many of my friends lost their houses to the banks. Some lost their jobs, and started living on welfare cheques. Some, I lost trace of, and I was told they had moved to another state in an attempt to search for another job opportunity. But, I wondered, where would they go, for the crisis was neither statewide nor nationwide, but worldwide? As an ironic twist, I am told that Buddhist temples and Catholic churches had become the places thronged to by the faithful and even non-believers. I myself stopped by a little known and secluded church in down town San Jose, California for a prayer after having a simple lunch with friends. To my surprise, the church was swarming with many people of different ages and races: the young in their late twenties, the “old” in their early fifties, the Hispanics and the Caucasians, the Afro-Americans and the Asian Americans. And many occupied the front pews. All eyes seemed to be fixed on the tabernacle in the sanctuary. All sat there quietly, but I could tell their hearts were praying to God, whom alone at this moment they could turn to, whose shoulder alone during this time they could cry on.
The stories of Frank McCourt and those who were hit by the 2008 financial crisis reverberate in my heart the story of my own childhood in Vietnam. Vietnam, after the Fall of Saigon, believe it or not, was not the current Vietnam that many tourists delightfully experience and enjoy now. Saigon, the city I was brought up in during the late 70s and early 80s, was technically a secluded city with bicycles and cyclos teeming along the many roads of the city which was once the capital. As a communist regime, the Vietnam government during this period controlled everything, including the economic system. Only an individual who possessed a valid I.D. was allowed to purchase certain kilograms of rice monthly from the government stores. To make a miserable and rather long story short, as a result of this policy, there were times I went on foot to school with an empty stomach. Empty stomach? Yes, I mean it. The image of myself, a teenager walking to school, hammered by the scorching heat and an empty stomach, has been engraved into my mind as an indelible memory, so to speak, because there existed the moments I thought I would collapse on the road to school because of hunger. And to cope with the desperate situation, I guess, I unconsciously or consciously allowed myself to daydream through the story of Jesus multiplying the five loafs of bread and the two fish to feed a big crowd in the wilderness. A crowd of how many? Nobody has the answer to that 64 million dollar question? But according to John, on that day five thousand men without counting the women and children were threatened by starvation. The verdict of the death penalty was about to be delivered. The many ropes were ready to terminate not only one life but more than five thousand. Unless there was a miracle, the hungry crowd would very soon turn into the starving multitude. Death was inevitable! Heaven had opened widely its many gates to receive many miserable souls. But, how blessed and fortunate the crowd was on that day, because God’s Son was in the midst of them. To be more accurate, Jesus was physically and emotionally present among the people. He immediately rolled up his sleeves. He acted at once. And by His prayer, the five loaves of bread and two fish were transformed from diminutive numbers to gigantic ones, actually huge ones, so huge that the immense crowd was all fed, so huge that the leftover fragments from the five loafs were collected and stored in not only one, but twelve baskets. Five thousand men, five thousand large bellies were filled with bread and fish. Women too! Children too! No more hungry! No more starving! What a catch! What a miracle! The more I allowed myself to be with the blessed crowd and to enjoy the food from “the table of plenty” in the desert, ironically, the more I became vexed and also jealous of that crowd. Envious, actually I was with those Jewish people! Why did they have Jesus in their midst so they no longer faced starving? But, here I was, a Vietnamese teenager with an empty stomach. Not a single bowl of noodles. Nothing! The azure blue sky was the only place that the teenager finally turned to… What an unforgettable life!
Once a week, on behalf of the OLSH church, I set my foot in Alice Springs Hospital to visit our Catholics. Hospital, I believe, is a place surely where nobody wants to be unless they have no other choice. In that sense, hospital is the desert in which I have been privileged to witness many tears on the faces of the vulnerable and the sick. My weekly pastoral visit in the hospital thus reminds me of the story of the starving multitude in the desert. Obviously our Catholics in Alice Springs hospital are not starving physically, but emotionally and spiritually. What if I were diagnosed with an incurable disease? What if I might have one of my legs amputated? What if…? Many “what ifs” that one can come up with, and with their own imagination fill in the blanks to complete the sentence. Living in such a vulnerable condition, who else but Jesus alone, the ultimate Healer whom the vulnerable people in the Alice Springs hospital-desert can turn to. Therefore, the Catholic patients are constantly searching for Jesus’ presence and hungry for spiritual bread and fish. In that sense the church in Alice Springs makes her presence among God’s children. In that sense I feel honoured to be among our Catholics in Alice Springs hospital.
Out of curiosity or for whatever reason I am not aware of, people occasionally ask me if the story of feeding five thousand men in John 6: 1-15 historically happened. Well, well, well! How do I know, to be honest, because I was not there, and the chance for me to be there has passed? But, let me assure you of this: the story of the multiplication of the bread and fish has happened again through the stories of the hungry Irish American boy in the memoir Angela’s Ashes, the people in the secluded church in downtown San Jose, and the hungry Vietnamese boy after the Fall of Saigon, and, of course, the Catholic patients in Alice Springs Hospital. Indeed the story will continue to happen until the end of the world, for human beings by nature are constantly starving either physically or spiritually, or in some cases, both. But, no worries! For our loving God through the person of Jesus is always present among human beings, whether or not we are aware of this!
Allellua! Praise the Lord!