So, the feeding of the five thousand wasn't a miracle. Instead the "real miracle" was that everyone shared their lunch. Everything had to be questioned and "re-interpreted" in such a way that it could be accepted and understood by modern people. So when we call Jesus Christ "God Incarnate" what we really mean was that he was so fully human that as he reached his potential as a man, he showed us what divinity looks like. When we speak of the Blessed Virgin we mean she was "a very good and holy Jewish young woman." When we speak of the "Real Presence" we mean that we see the "Christ that is within each one of us."Me too.
I hate this crap.
Here's my two cents worth on one of the miracle debunking lines that annoys me most.
Jesus fed the 5,000. No one pulled out their lunches.
For something that I just learned to pay attention to from listening to the St. Irenaeus Ministries podcast which is working its way through the Gospel According to John right now, go read chapter 6 and pay close attention to these lines.
12 When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, "Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted."My emphasis added, obviously. Where did those fragments come from? Not from people's lunches. From the five barley loaves. John wasn't leaving that point to chance.
13 So they collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets 8 with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat.
Now that I've expressed myself on that point, let us return to the well written article that prompted it.
Read the whole thing by Father Dwight Longenecker at Patheos.
