Do you long for the Eucharist?

This essay first appeared in our weekly newsletter on July 27, 2024.

On the shores of the Sea of Galilee is a site called Tabgha. The town’s name is an Arabic form of the Greek heptapegon, meaning “seven springs,” for the seven freshwater springs that still flow into the sea. It is the traditional site for the Calling of the First Disciples, since the flowing water makes it the most likely place for the disciples to have “washed their nets” (Lk. 5:2).

But the church at Tabgha is not dedicated to the Call of the First Disciples. Rather, it is called the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes to commemorate an event that happened nearby. 

The miracle is almost without peer in the New Testament. The Feeding of the 5,000 appears in every single Gospel. In two, it may appear twice: Matthew and Mark both recount the Feeding of the 4,000 as well. (New Testament scholars differ over whether this is a separate miracle or a retelling of the same story.)

And, as D. Moody Smith notes in the HarperCollins Bible Commentary, the account in John’s Gospel, which we read this Sunday, closely mirrors the accounts in the Synoptic Gospels. “Remarkably, all the other Gospels agree on the numbers: five thousand men, two hundred denarii worth of bread, five loaves, two fish, twelve baskets of fragments.”

This was clearly an essential story for the early church. And the eucharistic overtones are clear.

Under the altar of the spare, largely unadorned Benedictine chapel in Tabgha is a mosaic from the late fourth or early fifth centuries. It depicts two fishes beside a basket with four loaves. But why four and not five, as in the Gospels? The fifth loaf would be on the altar: the Eucharist.

Last week, the U.S. church concluded the highly successful National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, the culmination of a Eucharistic Revival, spurred, in part, by surveys that showed that many Catholics did not believe (or understand) the doctrine of the Real Presence, in which Christ is truly present in the Eucharist. (Outreach was proud to publish several articles by liturgical theologians on the event.) For several reasons, I was unable to attend, but I followed the events assiduously.

Believe it or not, as a 15-year-old boy, I attended the International Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia in 1976, where some people I didn’t know but would come to admire greatly were in attendance: St. Teresa of Calcutta, St. John Paul II, Servant of God Dorothy Day and Servant of God Pedro Arrupe.

During one Mass in Philadelphia, we sang a hymn that we had sung the entire year before in our local parish, and which I grew to love. “Gift of Finest Wheat” was officially introduced at the 1976 Congress. “You satisfy the hungry heart with gift of finest wheat,” goes the beautiful refrain.

In John’s Gospel, the hungry crowds longed for something to satisfy them. Today, we have the gift of the Eucharist. But do we long for it as much as the people who gathered around Jesus at Tabgha yearned for his words, his ministry, his healings, his companionship and, yes, his real presence? The feast awaits.