And his disciples said unto him, From where should we have so much bread in the wilderness, as to fill so great a multitude?
All Commentaries on Matthew 15:33 Go To Matthew 15
Hilary of Poitiers
AD 368
This was in response to everything that had happened before. So we must probe the corresponding reason for this entire situation and especially of the relation of Jews and Gentiles. We will then see that the promises that had earlier applied to the Jewish people were to be received by the Gentile people. There is an order, then, in the Lord’s words that holds true in the receiving of grace. Those who approach baptism declare first that they believe in the Son of God and in his Passion and resurrection; a commitment is then made to this sign of profession. In this way a certain truth about the things themselves may result from this verbal promise. Those who devote the entire time in fasting to commemorate the Lord’s Passion are joined to the Lord in a sort of fellowship of compassion. Therefore both by the sign of their promise and by their fasting, they spend all the time involved in the Lord’s Passion with the Lord. Do you see the mystery? The Lord has compassion on this hopeful following of believers and says they have been with him for three days! Lest they weaken in the course of their worldly lives, in their workaday world, he wants now to feed them with his food and fortify them with his bread. In this way they can complete the formidable task of the entire journey, for the disciples were complaining that there was no bread in the desert. Indeed, they had previously imbibed the lesson that nothing is impossible with God. But what is signified by certain events can exceed the measure of our understanding. Indeed, how greatly favored the apostles were in saving Israel is told in the epistles of blessed Paul. And so, with the same devotion but now in the gathering of Gentiles, both the multiplying of bread and the silence of fasting are introduced.
