The miracle of the loaves

“I once heard a homilist give what he said was the real meaning of the story: the people in the crowd took out food they were hiding under their cloaks and shared it. Jesus’ preaching inspired the melting of selfishness, and this was the true miracle according to this preacher.” Marcellino D’Ambrosio, Ph.D in The Miracle of the Loaves

Yes. That is the usual interpretation of the priests of the liberashun zeology which is another way of describing those who suffer from Bolshevik Retardation Syndrome. If we all share our bread then we will all have more, twelve baskets more than what we started with. This moment of obscurity brought to you by the same school that got you “if we all pay more taxes we shall be a more affluent society.”

Now, I belong to the superstitious medieval ignoramus part of the Church. You can recognize us in the pews, we are the ones rolling our eyes like Linda Blair in The Exorcist every time father pulls a doozy like that.
I am proud to confess that I have read Karl Marx and I find it supremely boring and wrong. To use Bearded Chuck’s own words: “this matter of the surviving meta-historical values in our societies must be explained, we must explain its influence or else Dialectic Materialism is toast!” A toast! I drink to that.
The miracle did not materialize when the Soviet Commissars forced everyone in the USSR to share his/her lunch. Obviously only Jesus could pull one like that, with no tanks and no KGB. But I digress…

I say that calling Phillip (the practical, educated man among the twelve) and asking him to fix lunch about 8,500 miles and 2,000 years time from the nearest Pizzeria Uno was the way Jesus confronted his body of bishops with the reality of 5,000+ empty bellies. The whole committee of problem solvers could do nothing. To save the day comes a little boy with a few fishes and a few barley loaves, the product of being up early to grind some barley and go fishing (otherwise known to those Neanderthals as individual initiative, work, and dedication–obviously he did not know about Section 8 and the Food Stamps Program, otherwise he would have been taking a nappy.)

So Jesus takes the meager contribution (presumably after giving the boy one or two copper coins for his mom) and starts multiplying bread like nobody’s business. The greatest thing since the chariot (slice bread was a few centuries in the future.)

In the end the 5,000+ hungry travelers were fed and (to rub it in) Jesus sends the bishops on doggy-bag duty and they come back each with a mean basket full of leftovers. Jesus did not want anything to go to “waist” that is He did not want the people to hide it under their cloaks one more time… oh.. let me read that again. It is “waste” you dummy! What a maroon! Of course!

But… that would indicate we have a surplus! Where did the extra munchies come from? I am sure you have to read a lot of Albert Nolan and Leonardo Boff to make this thing square! Look at that! This Jesus must have been somethin’! Where did he get all that chow?

Ah… he must have had some divine powers to make things appear from nothing, like evolutionists make DNA appear from lighting hitting a can of Campbell soup, or Soviet courts make witnesses materialize in the docket declaring they saw their mothers teaching other babushkas that Stalin does not exist.

Like I told you before, I am a complete ignoramus and I live in the mountains. But even here we would be astonished if a regular Billy Bob pulls one catfish sandwich out of his empty raccoon skin hat. Should it ever happen I’m sure we can hit him hard with that old dusty volume of Das Kapital. That will teach him to fake miraculls!

Carlos Caso-Rosendi