In Vatican newspaper commentary, US novelist sees Christ’s feeding of multitude as ‘prophetic’
June 18, 2025
The Vatican newspaper has published a front-page commentary on Luke 9:11b-17 by Jonathan Safran Foer, an American novelist.
The passage, which recounts Christ’s feeding of the multitude, is the Gospel reading at Mass this year for Corpus Christi, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.
“Luke 9:11b-17 is a story about hunger, but not just that of the crowd,” Safran Foer began. “It shows the deepest and most silent hunger of the disciples and, by extension, ours: the hunger for control, for certainty and for the reassurance that we will always have enough.”
“A large crowd has followed Jesus into the desert region,” he continued. “There is no food. The disciples do some calculations and panic. Their instinct is practical: send them away. But Jesus responds with a command that must have seemed absurd: ‘You give them something to eat.’“
Safran Foer commented:
We live in a world bursting with production today. Humanity produces more food than ever before in history: nearly 3,000 calories per person per day, enough to feed everyone on Earth. Yet more than 780 million people go hungry, while a third of all food is wasted. This is not because we don’t have enough, but because we don’t know when to stop taking more. The richest 1 percent now owns nearly half of the world’s wealth. Corporations destroy surplus crops to keep prices high. Countries throw away meals while neighboring countries starve. There’s a common story behind all this: There may not be enough for me, so I need just a little more.
“This story is not just about hunger,” Safran Foer concluded, adding:
It is about conversion: from self-protection to generosity, from fear to trust, from accumulation to communion. In a world where billionaires compete to own planets while children starve, Luke 9 is not something from another era. It is prophetic. Jesus challenges us to believe that when we stop asking “is it enough for me?” and start asking “is it enough for us?” the miracles will begin.
For all current news, visit our News home page.
Further information:
All comments are moderated. To lighten our editing burden, only current donors are allowed to Sound Off. If you are a current donor, log in to see the comment form; otherwise please support our work, and Sound Off!
