This week’s Letter to the Ephesians, though probably not composed by Paul, captures his spirit and his consistent call for unity: One body, spirit, hope, faith, baptism, and God of all.

It’s easy to put your trust in God after the miracle. Faith requires front-loading your trust: in forgiveness, in resurrection, in divine rescue across the board.

Jesus took the bread and, having given thanks, gave it to those who were seated. He did the same with the fish. All ate as much as they wanted.

Even if our faith is halting; even if we come to Jesus with our meager abilities and talents; even if we’re overcome by the inadequacy of what we have and wonder, “What is this little when the need is so great?” handing over that “little” that we have to Christ will be more than enough, and there will be miracles of trust, forgiveness, generosity, healing, and love.

Like the crowds who followed Jesus, we seek him and ask him for forgiveness and healing.

The stories of Jesus’ multiplication of food and feeding of large numbers of people are told six times in the gospels, and readers therefore would be correct not only to note their importance but also to hear in them overtones of the eucharistic celebration.

The love Paul requires of us is no common love, but that which . . . effects as great and as perfect a union as though it were between limb and limb. —Saint John Chryostom (c. 347–407), Homily XI