2 December 2026 · Latin Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malankara Rite · Syro-Malabar Rite · മലയാളം
“I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat; and I do not want to send them away hungry, for they might faint on the way.” Matthew 15:32
Isaiah promises a mountain banquet for all peoples, rich food and fine wine, and more: God “will swallow up death forever” and “wipe away the tears from all faces”. In the Gospel that promise begins to come true on a mountain by the Sea of Galilee. Crowds bring the lame, the blind, the mute; Jesus heals them. Then, moved with compassion, he takes seven loaves and a few fish, gives thanks, breaks them and gives them to the disciples to distribute. All eat and are filled, with seven baskets left over.
The words “took, gave thanks, broke, gave” are the words of the Last Supper. Advent prepares us to receive the One who is Bread from heaven, born in Bethlehem, whose name means “house of bread”. And the disciples are his hands: Christ multiplies what we bring, but asks us to distribute it to the hungry.
Theme: “A feast for all peoples.”
God promises a feast; Jesus heals and feeds; the Eucharist sends us to the hungry.
“On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.” Isaiah 25:6
“Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat; and I do not want to send them away hungry, for they might faint on the way.”” Matthew 15:32
Apply: Feed someone hungry this week.
“He will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken.” Isaiah 25:8
“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” Revelation 21:4
Apply: Visit or call someone who is grieving.
“The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Psalm 23:1
“He took the seven loaves and the fish; and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all of them ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full.” Matthew 15:36–37
Apply: Say grace before every meal this Advent.
Christ feeds us so that we may feed others.
The feast has begun at the altar.
Take-home resolution: Prepare an Advent food basket for a poor family.
Dear friends, Isaiah today describes a great banquet on the mountain of the Lord: a feast of rich food and well-aged wines for all peoples (Isaiah 25:6). It is a feast for all nations, not one people only. And at that feast God will destroy the shroud that covers all peoples; he will swallow up death forever and wipe away the tears from all faces (Isaiah 25:7–8).
This is the hope of Advent: not only a baby in a manger, but the final banquet of the Kingdom, where death is no more and every tear is wiped away. Christmas begins what that banquet will complete.
In the Gospel Jesus goes up a mountain by the Sea of Galilee. Great crowds come, bringing the lame, the blind, the mute and many others, and he heals them. Then he has compassion on the hungry crowd, and with seven loaves and a few fish he feeds four thousand. All ate and were filled, and seven baskets were left over (Matthew 15:29–37).
Notice the order: first Jesus heals, then he feeds. And notice his words: I have compassion for the crowd. Jesus sees physical hunger as well as spiritual hunger. Isaiah's mountain banquet is already beginning on the hillside in Galilee.
The disciples asked: where are we to get enough bread in the desert? They looked at what they lacked. Jesus asked: how many loaves have you? He looked at what they had. Advent invites us to give our little loaves to the Lord, our time, our money, our talents, and let him multiply them.
This Advent, let us feed someone who is hungry: a migrant worker, a poor family, a lonely person who needs company more than food. And at each Mass let us remember that we are already tasting the banquet of the Kingdom. Amen.
Children, Jesus fed thousands with just a few loaves. When you share even a little, Jesus can do great things with it!
Lord Jesus, compassionate Shepherd, you healed the sick and fed the hungry on the mountain. Feed me with your Bread of life, and make my hands generous to those who have nothing to eat. Amen.
On a mountain the Lord spreads a feast for all peoples and swallows up death forever. In Matthew, Jesus goes up a mountain and sits down; the crowds lay their sick at his feet, and he feeds them until they are filled. Advent's hope has a table in it, and the Gospel shows who the host is.
Setting.
Isaiah 24–27 is often called the “Isaiah Apocalypse”, because it looks beyond the fall of particular cities to God's final victory over the whole earth. Scholars generally think it was given its present form later than the eighth-century prophet. The reading is a hymn set on “this mountain”, which is Zion, the mountain of the Temple.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines” (25:6)
“All peoples” is the key. Israel's God is the host, and the mountain of Israel becomes the table of the nations.
“he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces” (25:8)
St Paul quotes the first words about the resurrection: “Death has been swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54). The book of Revelation takes up the tears (Revelation 7:17; 21:4). God wipes them with his own hand.
“This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” (25:9)
This is the song of Advent. “Waiting” is not an empty time; it ends in recognition: “Lo, this is our God.”
How the Church reads it.
The Church hears this banquet in the Eucharist, which the Catechism calls a pledge of the glory to come and an anticipation of the heavenly feast (CCC 1402–1405). It reads the wiping of tears together with Revelation when it speaks of the new universe, in which God will dwell among us (CCC 1044). “All peoples” remains the Church's horizon: the Gospel excludes no one.
Setting.
Jesus has just healed the daughter of a Canaanite woman in the region of Tyre and Sidon (15:21–28). Now he comes back to the Sea of Galilee. Mark places the parallel scene in the region of the Decapolis, Gentile territory (Mark 7:31; 8:1–10), and many read Matthew's crowd in that light, since they praise “the God of Israel”. Matthew has already told a first feeding (14:13–21).
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the maimed, the blind, the mute, and many others. They put them at his feet, and he cured them,” (15:30)
Jesus sits on a mountain as he did to teach (5:1). What Isaiah promised for the mountain of God now begins around him.
“I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat” (15:32)
Here Jesus starts the conversation. He sees the hunger before anyone mentions it.
“he took the seven loaves and the fish; and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.” (15:36)
The four verbs (took, gave thanks, broke, gave) return at the Last Supper (26:26–27). The disciples, who asked where bread could be found, become the hands that serve it. Then “all of them ate and were filled” (15:37), and what remains is more than what they began with.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism teaches that the multiplication of the loaves prefigures “the superabundance of this unique bread of his Eucharist” (CCC 1335). Some of the Fathers saw in the two feedings of the Gospels the two peoples called to one table, Israel and the nations (in substance). At every Mass the same four actions are done, and the same people are fed: those who could not feed themselves.
Did the crowd simply share what they had brought, or was it a miracle?
The text says plainly that seven loaves and a few fish fed the whole crowd, that all were filled, and that seven baskets were left. All four Evangelists tell a feeding of this kind as a sign of Jesus' power, and the Church reads it so (CCC 1335). Sharing is a real lesson of the scene, but it is the fruit of the miracle, not an explanation of it.