Eighth Sunday after Pentecost: “Breaking the Bread, Restoring Humanity”.

Commemoration of the Holy Prophet Ezekiel.

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to the Apostle and Evangelist Saint Matthew (Mt 14:14–22):

Jesus went ashore, saw a large crowd, and was moved with compassion for them, and He healed their sick.

When evening came, the disciples approached Him and said, “This place is deserted and the hour is now late; send the crowd away, so they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”

But Jesus said to them, “They do not need to go away; you give them something to eat.”

They said to Him, “We have only five loaves and two fish.”

And He said, “Bring them here to Me.”

Then He ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, He looked up to heaven, blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who gave them to the crowds.

They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve baskets full of the leftover pieces.

Those who had eaten were about five thousand men, not counting women and children.

Immediately afterward, Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side, while He dismissed the crowds.

Homily.

“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 1:3).

Beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord, on this Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, the Liturgy invites us to contemplate two powerful and complementary images: on one hand, the divided community of Corinth, which Saint Paul exhorts to rediscover unity in the name of the Lord; on the other, the hungry crowd in the desert, whom Jesus welcomes with tenderness, feeds and consoles, breaking bread in a gesture that foreshadows the Eucharist and reveals the Father’s compassion.

Amid these scenes, the voice of Ezekiel resounds—the prophet of hope—who announces life where death once reigned, resurrection where dry bones lay, and streams of living water flowing from the Temple to transform the desert of humanity.

This Word pierces us and illumines the darkness of our time: it guides us from the pain of division to the miracle of communion, from the loneliness of the crowds to the salvific embrace of the glorious Cross.

The Apostle pleads with us to be “of one heart and one soul,” while Christ teaches us that true love does not turn away the hungry, does not flee from need, but becomes broken Bread, an offered Body, a saving presence.

The Church calls us to rediscover the depth of discipleship: to follow the Lord means to be transformed by His mercy, to abandon all dispersion, to become nourishment for the world, instruments of peace, and prophets of hope.

Saint Paul, with passionate words, denounces the fragmentation in the Corinthian community: “I belong to Paul,” “I to Apollos,” “I to Cephas,” “I to Christ” (1 Cor 1:12). To this division, he poses a timeless question: “Is Christ divided?” (1 Cor 1:13).

In that question burns the call to unity: to return to Christ alone, to recognize ourselves as members of one Body, to overcome human logics that break communion.

In the Gospel, Jesus looks at the crowd with the gaze of One who gathers and unites. The Greek verb συνάγω (synágō) means precisely “to gather together”: He does not see an anonymous mass, but sheep without a shepherd, lost and weary (Mt 9:36).

Before multiplying the loaves, He restores fraternity: He gathers, welcomes, and heals. In doing so, He reveals the face of a God who does not dominate, but serves; who does not divide, but gives; who does not exclude, but creates communion.

The miracle of sharing arises precisely from this rediscovered communion: it is fraternity that makes life possible even in the desert of humanity, when we allow ourselves to be gathered by Christ and learn to live no longer for ourselves, but for one another.

Even today, the Church suffers from selfishness, misunderstandings, and painful divisions. But Christ is not a banner to be waved according to human interests, nor an idea to be molded to personal tastes or the logic of power. He is one, indivisible, given entirely for the salvation of all. Every schism is a wound inflicted upon the mystery of redemption, a scandal against the truth of the Gospel.

When speaking of the disunity of the Church, we must sincerely ask a central question: is the Christ proclaimed by many confessions truly the same Christ of the Gospels? Not all, in fact, believe in His command regarding the Eucharist, in the reality of the one Church He Himself founded, or in His continuous guidance through the Holy Spirit by means of apostolic succession. Some have replaced divine guidance with merely human vicars; others have entrusted ecclesial authority to anyone—men or women—without divine mandate and without roots in the living Tradition.

Not all embrace the spirit of humility and service that Christ embodied. Instead, some prefer forms of worldly authority, ostentation, and dominion over modesty and evangelical poverty.

Every aspect of faith and ecclesial life—even the smallest—must faithfully reflect the face of the Lord Jesus in His fullness. Where this does not occur, one cannot speak of true belonging to His Mystical Body, which is the Holy Mother Church, the pillar and ground of the truth.

In confirmation of this, Saint John Chrysostom solemnly warns us: “It was not Paul who was crucified for you! You were not baptized in the name of Apollo! Why divide the Body of the Lord?” (Homilies on 1 Corinthians, 3). To break charity means to break Christ Himself, whose garment under the Cross was not divided.

Those who close themselves off in their own group lose the vision of communion and stray from the spirit of the Gospel. A divided Church is a counter-witness, an obstacle to the proclamation of love.

Saint Cyprian reminds us: “God is one, and Christ is one, and His Church is one. No one can have God as Father who does not have the Church as Mother” (On the Unity of the Catholic Church, 6). Division denies the Cross, the supreme sign of communion.

Saint Paul’s urgent call — “that you be perfectly united in mind and thought” (1 Cor 1:10) — urges us to live a faith that unites, a charity that embraces, a Gospel that reconciles.

From the wounds of division, the Gospel leads us to the silence of the desert, where Jesus, upon hearing of John the Baptist’s death, “withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place” (Mt 14:13). He does not flee but opens himself to prayer, transforms grief into offering, and solitude into compassionate love. It is in this secluded space that the miracle of communion germinates.

Yet the crowd follows Him, thirsty for meaning and life. Though heavy at heart, He does not shut Himself off or reject them, but “when He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them and healed their sick” (Mt 14:14). This gaze is one of the deepest in the Gospel: the Son of God sees before speaking and allows Himself to be touched before acting.

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem observes: “Christ does not pity as an ordinary man, but as God who heals. His compassion is a saving energy: it touches, regenerates, and heals” (Mystagogical Catecheses, 4:1).

From this gaze the miracle is born. Jesus begins with compassion, not with resources or problem analysis. When the disciples suggest sending the crowd away, He answers: “You give them something to eat” (Mt 14:16). He blesses the few loaves and fish, breaks them, and gives them: a gesture that goes beyond material providence, revealing the Eucharistic mystery.

Saint Ambrose comments: “The bread that Christ breaks is already a figure of the Eucharist. The Lord, in dividing, does not take away but multiplies; whoever gives with love does not lose but gains” (Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucam, V, 62). The broken bread is Christ Himself, and we, members of His Body, are called to become bread for the world, a concrete expression of charity and living communion.

Here compassion intertwines with the challenge of unity. Saint John Chrysostom admonishes: “Unity is what most glorifies Christ. Nothing offends Him as much as divisions. Paul does not call for miracles, but for harmony among brothers” (In Epistolam I ad Corinthios, Hom. 3, PG 61, 19).

Every division is a wound inflicted on the Body of the Lord, a counter-testimony to the Gospel. When we close ourselves off in our group, in our opinions, or in our spiritual pride, we lose the heart of faith. The Body that Christ united with His blood cannot be broken.

Unity is not an abstract concept, but a way of life; not uniformity, but communion. It is the glory of God reflected in the concrete charity of the disciples. Before acting, Jesus looks; before accomplishing, He loves; and He invites us to do the same — to look upon others with eyes touched by their thirst. Without this compassion, no word makes sense, no doctrine stands, no pastoral care can truly heal. Everything begins here: from the compassion that saves.

And it is precisely from this compassion that the responsibility to act concretely before the hunger around us arises. We cannot merely observe or postpone, because true communion manifests itself in daily commitment that transforms piety into an act of concrete love.

Beloved brothers in Christ, we cannot read this passage without thinking of the real, heartbreaking hunger that afflicts so many peoples today, such as in the Gaza Strip. Not only under bombardment, but without water, food, medicine. Children dying not only from bullets, but from hunger. It is not merely a political problem: it is a matter of humanity.

Saint Basil the Great shakes our conscience with harsh words: “The bread you keep for yourself belongs to the poor. The garment you do not wear belongs to the naked. The resources you do not spend belong to the needy” (Homily to the Rich Man, 6).

And again: “If you can feed the hungry and do not, you are responsible for their death. Hunger is born from injustice.”

Today in Gaza, people die not only from war, but from lack of food. Hunger has become a weapon, a punishment. And we, as humanity, are called not to turn away. We cannot solve this tragedy alone, but we can choose not to ignore it. We can offer prayer, fasting, commitment, voice. We can recognize in every hungry person the face of Christ.

In the face of those children — as in every corner of the world — we see the very face of the Son of God. Hunger is not only a human tragedy; it is an offense against God, the God of life. Blocked supplies, poisoned water, bombed hospitals, closed corridors… all of it cries out to Heaven.

As Christians, we cannot remain silent. We must raise our voices in the name of Christ, the Prince of Peace. We demand an immediate end to hostilities, the opening of humanitarian aid, and a true path toward justice. In the face of hunger, there is no such thing as neutrality! We are called to a radical choice: either we become part of that Bread that gives life, or we remain complicit in the hunger that kills. Either we wither in our individualism, or we allow ourselves to be broken by the Lord for the life of the world.

When we pray the Our Father, we ask: “Give us this day our daily bread” (Mt 6:11). But this is not an individual request — it is universal. Saint Cyril of Jerusalem reminds us: “We do not ask for just any bread, but for the bread that is necessary — our bread — and we ask that it be given to us today, because each day we depend on the Father” (Mystagogical Catechesis V, 15).

That broken bread is Christ Himself. And we, nourished by Him, are called to become bread for others: to allow ourselves to be broken for love, to offer ourselves without calculation, to give without measure. Because true faith is not consumed merely in ritual, but fulfilled in concrete love, in lived compassion, in real sharing.

If, while celebrating the Eucharist, we turn our eyes away from those who hunger, who suffer, who ask only for a fragment of humanity, we deny the very sacrament we claim to honor.

For the blessed bread on the altar truly transforms us only if it continues to be broken in daily life — in compassion, in justice. Otherwise, the Eucharist, although real, may become for us a sign rejected, if we do not allow ourselves to be transformed by it.

This is why the words, “You give them something to eat”, ring out as an urgent cry in the Gospel, a calling that shakes us to the core. It is the voice of hunger crying out; it is Christ waiting in the faces of the small, the poor, the hungry. And He addresses to us a pressing invitation: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

But in order to give others something to eat, we must first be drawn to Him, united with Him, transformed by Him. Only those who have been fed by the Living Bread that came down from Heaven can become bread broken for others. It is in this light that the evangelist John offers us a clear eschatological perspective, when he records Jesus saying: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (Jn 12:32).

That “drawing all to Himself” perfectly reflects the logic of today’s Gospel: not a gathering for spectacle, but for nourishment in love; not only with bread, but with Christ Himself.

On the Cross, Jesus becomes the bread broken for all, fulfilling the promised unity. Psalm 22 expresses this universal hope: “All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord... the poor will eat and be satisfied” (Ps 22:27).

Dear brothers and sisters, this hunger, however, is not only material.

Many of us know the thirst of the soul. I have known it too. I sought God within the Catholic Church with gratitude, but within me there grew a spiritual restlessness — a hunger for authenticity, for living liturgy, for silence that speaks, for a Tradition capable of guarding the Mystery. This thirst could not be quenched by words alone, but only by the living Presence of the Lord.

Thus, by no merit of my own, the Lord led me toward the Orthodox Church: the Church of the Bread that satisfies, of the liturgy that safeguards the faith, of the silent communion between Heaven and earth. I remember deeply the first time I received Holy Communion in the Divine Liturgy: in that moment I experienced a fullness I had never known before. The hunger was stilled — not in the body, but in the soul. It was the real Presence of Christ in the broken bread, in the faith of the Fathers, in the prayerful silence. This mystery reminds us that true nourishment goes beyond material food and is rooted in a living communion with Christ, the source of all life and hope.

Dearest ones, this Sunday we remember Saint Ezekiel, a prophet not only of judgment but above all of profound and radical hope. His voice echoed through exile, through the destruction of the Temple, through the despair of the people — and right there, he received from God some of the most luminous visions of Scripture.

In chapter 37, Ezekiel is led to a valley full of dry bones, and is asked: “Son of man, can these bones live?” (Ez 37:3). To his faithful answer — “Lord, you alone know” — comes the miracle: the bones are rejoined, clothed in flesh, and the Spirit breathes life into them again.

Ezekiel thus becomes a prophetic sign of the resurrection of the people and of the life-giving power of God’s Word. In chapter 47 of his vision, the prophet beholds waters flowing from the Temple, bringing healing wherever they go. These waters are an image of the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the pierced heart of the Messiah: from Christ’s open side on the Cross flows new life for the world.

On the Cross, Christ reveals Himself as the center that unites all things—not through domination, but through love; not by force, but by the total gift of Himself. He is the crucified King who draws all people to Himself, just as the prophet Zechariah foretold: “They shall look on Him whom they have pierced” (Zech 12:10). From His pierced side flow blood and water, the sacramental signs of new life: Baptism and the Eucharist. From that wounded heart, the Church is born, and from it pours forth the grace that saves.

In this context, when one speaks of the Holy Spirit as “proceeding from the heart of the Messiah,” the expression must not be understood in a dogmatic sense, but rather in light of the economy of salvation. The Orthodox faith clearly professes that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, as affirmed in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. Nevertheless, in the history of redemption, the Spirit is also given through the Son: He is the breath of Trinitarian love, who, from the heart of the Father—manifested in the flesh of the crucified Son—is poured out upon the world as a free and unmerited gift.

Thus, from that very heart which loved unto the end flows not only the Bread of Life, but also the breath of the Spirit, who constitutes the Body of Christ—the Church—in the unity of grace.

On the Cross, He gathers the entire human family: broken, lost, hungry. On the Cross, He is the Bread broken for the life of the world, the wounded Shepherd, the obedient Son who leads us back to the Father. Ezekiel had foreshadowed it even with a striking gesture: “Son of man, eat this scroll, then go and speak to the house of Israel” (Ez 3:1).

The prophet eats the Word and finds it sweet as honey.

This is the prophet’s vocation: to become what he proclaims. It is not enough to speak about God; one must be transformed by His Word, to assimilate it until it becomes flesh of one’s own flesh. So too are we, today, called to “eat the Word,” to be nourished by Christ—because only those who have been fed by Him can truly be broken for the sake of others.

In the heart of the Liturgy, Christ continues to gather us, to feed us, to love us. And then He sends us forth into the world, so that we too, like Ezekiel, may become prophets—who do not remain silent, but who courageously proclaim that even today dry bones can live again, if touched by the Spirit and called by the Word.

Ezekiel is a figure of Christ: both saw the ruin of the people, both were sent among the rebellious, and both spoke in God’s name to gather, restore, and bring life.

We too are called to be watchmen in our time: to keep vigil, to console, to denounce, and to hope; to believe that, even in our day, God can make the dry bones of the Church and the world live again. And today, He addresses us with a question that pierces the heart:

Will you become bread for others? Will you give them something to eat? This is the silent yet decisive question He asks us in every Liturgy.

Christ does not send us away. He gathers us. He satisfies us. He sends us.

May His love make us capable of compassion, of breaking bread, of building peace, of defending the innocent, and of bearing witness with our lives to what Ezekiel once prophesied with words.

As we celebrate the Eucharist, let us remember:

Christ is the Bread that is broken—He who heals the world and satisfies every hunger.

To Christ, who gives Himself in every Liturgy, who gathers the scattered, who feeds the hungry, and transforms us into His living Body,

be glory, now and forever, unto ages of ages.

Amen.

Archpriest Michele Alberto Del Duca.