Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

When Jesus heard it, He departed from there by boat to a deserted place by Himself. But when the multitudes heard it, they followed Him on foot from the cities. And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick. When it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is already late. Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food.” But Jesus said to them, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” And they said to Him, “We have here only five loaves and two fish.” He said, “Bring them here to Me.” Then He commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass. And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitudes. So they all ate and were filled, and they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments that remained. Now those who had eaten were about five thousand men, besides women and children. (Matthew 14:13–21)

They announce the death of the Baptist to the Savior. When He hears about it, He withdraws to a desert place. He did this not because, as some think, He feared death, but to spare his enemies from adding one murder to another, or in order to postpone His own death to the day of Passover, on which, for the sake of a sacred mystery, a lamb is sacrificed and the doorposts of believers are sprinkled with blood. Or He withdrew in order to offer to us an example of avoiding the rashness of those who hand themselves in of their own accord. For not everyone perseveres with the same constancy in the tortures to which they offer themselves to be tortured. This is why in another passage He gives the command: “When they persecute you in one city, flee to another.” It was also nicely stated by the evangelist: “He withdrew to a desert place,” not “He fled.” In other words, Jesus was avoiding his persecutors; He did not fear them.…

Everything here is full of mysteries. He withdraws from Judea, He comes to a desert place, crowds follow Him, having left their cities, Jesus goes out to them, He has compassion on the crowd, He heals their diseases, and He does this not in the morning, not in the advancing day, not at noon, but in the evening, when the sun of justice has set.

They do not need to seek different kinds of foods and to buy unknown bread for themselves, when they have the heavenly Bread with them. “You give them something to eat.” He invites the apostles to the breaking of the bread, that the greatness of the sign may become more widely known to those who testify that they do not have any.…

He looked up to heaven that He might teach them to keep their eyes focused there. He then took in hand five loaves of bread and two fish; He broke the loaves and gave the food to the disciples. By the breaking of the bread, He makes it into a seedbed of food—for if the bread had been left intact and not pulled apart and broken into pieces, they would have been unable to feed the great crowds of men, women and children. The law with the prophets are therefore pulled apart and broken into pieces. Mysteries are made manifest, so that what did not feed the multitude of people in its original whole and unbroken state now feeds them in its divided state.

Jerome, Commentary on Matthew 2.14.13,15–16,19