The following article and images were sent to The Remnant at the request of Bishop Robert Mutsaerts:
Cardinal Eijk celebrated a pontifical High Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite on March 15 (Laetare Sunday) in the Church of the Immaculate Conception (Grote Kerk) in Oss. The church was completely filled with more than 700 (mostly young) faithful.
The Church of the Immaculate Conception of Mary in Oss is a church built in the Neo-Gothic style, designed by architect HJ van Tulder. Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite is celebrated in this church every Sunday.
In his sermon, Cardinal Eijk reflected on the Gospel reading about the miraculous multiplication of the loaves (John 6:1-15).
To feed a large group of people, Jesus has the five loaves and two fish that a young boy has with him distributed among the crowd. It turns out there is enough bread for everyone; there are even 12 baskets left over. Cardinal Eijk recounted the story he had heard about a priest who, during a religious class at secondary school in the 1950s, said to the students: “Well, boys, of course, we no longer believe literally about that miraculous multiplication of the loaves these days. What Jesus supposedly did there is completely impossible. But I will tell you what the real miracle was. Jesus proclaimed love, and that crowd was so filled with love because of it that everyone who had a loaf of bread with them shared it with others. And that is why everyone received enough.”
Cardinal Eijk called this “the trivialization of catechesis to the extreme” and, alongside various cultural changes, “a major cause of the crisis the Church is currently in.
Cardinal Eijk called this “the trivialization of catechesis to the extreme” and, alongside various cultural changes, “a major cause of the crisis the Church is currently in. What that priest said there in the 1950s, and which, I fear, has often been repeated since, is not in the Gospel. It states there that Jesus fed an entire multitude with nothing but five loaves and two fish. Jesus actually performed this sign of the miraculous multiplication of loaves. The starting point of the Christian faith is that God created the universe out of nothing. If He could do that, then He can also miraculously multiply bread,” said Cardinal Eijk.
He emphasized that it is God “who has given us life and also the means, including the means to bake bread, that we need to sustain our earthly life. This is underscored by the miraculous multiplication of the loaves. In the miraculous multiplication of the loaves, however, Jesus makes it clear that He is concerned with much more than food for our earthly life alone, contrary to what the crowd thinks. In the miraculous multiplication of the loaves, we see an unmistakable reference to the sacrament of the Eucharist and the Paschal mystery.”
Cardinal Eijk: “Today, the Church presents us with the Gospel of the miraculous multiplication of the loaves to prevent us from letting that life with God and by God slip through our fingers. And to ensure that we embrace it with joy and surrender in the Eucharist, the pledge of eternal life.”
