I agree with the rejection of magic there.
Excellent observation! After all, “magic” is about asserting control of forces that humans generally don’t have control over, in an attempt to wrest control for oneself of these forces. That’s not something that God has to do – God
already is in control!
If God can create the universe and life, then God can create a few loaves and fish to feed a few thousand people. I just don’t see a problem.
It’s a problem for folks who want to assert that there are no true miracles in the Bible, but rather, just “stories” that became tall tales and went way beyond what actually happened.
I think the boy was a neighborhood friend of Andrew. Andrew invited him to come hear Jesus.
So the boy about 12, because he is still called a boy, ask his mom if he could go. His mom approved and said she would fix him a lunch. When his mom gave him his lunch she said She packed enough for Andrew also!
Umm… pardon? It’s an interesting story… but is this just a personal reflection on what might have given rise to the boy having had that food?
Part of the guilt of our age is that there has been pressure, both seen and unseen, not only to reinvent the mass, but also to reinvent Christ into a less supernatural, more “believable” hero.
some progressives in the Church want to deny the existence of the supernatural aspects of the faith
This might very well be true – in fact, I think it’s a realistic assessment of the way some folks think these days – but it’s not how this whole “not a miracle, just some ‘sharing’” meme got started…
I have read and even heard some priests that there was no miracles, no magic performed by Jesus but that actually he made them share what food they had hidden under their tunics, which I find ridiculous.
Interestingly, this “sharing” idea didn’t originate with post-Vatican II priests and nuns. Rather, we see this same idea percolating among the prominent Protestant German theologians of the early 20th century. Being Rationalists, they denied the existence of true miracles (including the miracles of Jesus). I think there’s the opportunity to ask a
very interesting question here. The claim is that the “miracle” is that the Jewish people to whom Jesus was preaching would actually share their own food with others. Now… was there any kind of pogrom against Jewish people as sub-humans who didn’t even deserve to live that was initiated in Germany in the first half of the 20th century?
Hmm… there’s not a correspondence here between
anti-Semitism and the “it’s not really a miracle” meme, is there?
