How to accept that ‘we’ are the little ones

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior. For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness.”

These are Mary’s words from Luke 1:46-48, the opening of her Magnificat. Mary sings these words in response to her cousin Elizabeth’s declaration that Mary is “blessed among women.” Mary, though, shifts our attention to the “greatness of the Lord,” who has looked with favor upon her “lowliness.” Her greatness is truly his.

I begin our reflection for this Sunday’s reading from John 6:1-15 by returning to Mary’s Magnificat in Luke because Mary’s emphasis on “lowliness” is one key to reading John well.

Indeed, part of the good news of the Gospel is our great God’s regard for the lowly, for the humble, for the small. God’s preference is for those “of no account,” the sinners, the sick. Through the small and little, time and again, Christ makes the good news known. He lifts the lowly. He is our salvation … our heaven.

Contemplating the small and lowly

All Scriptures offer the small and lowly for our contemplation in myriad variations. Let’s draw on some examples we have heard on more recent Sundays: Only a few weeks ago, we were reading the Gospel of Mark and encountered there the woman with the hemorrhage, who had been brought so low by her afflictions that she could but reach for the hem of Christ’s garment. Also, not so long ago, we heard about the shepherd Amos being called to the work of a prophet. Perhaps you also remember another offering of “littleness” in the parable of the mustard seed from Matthew’s Gospel. In this parable, the tiniest seed becomes like the kingdom of heaven. In these ways (and more!) our attention is constantly turned toward the lowly.

Likewise, in John 6 we encounter a large, hungry crowd that is fed with just five barley loaves and two fish. John emphasizes the “littleness” of these provisions by allowing us to overhear two of the disciples discussing the situation:

“‘Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.’

One of his disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him, ‘There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?'”

As we know, Christ multiplies these five loaves and two fish — provided by a little boy — sufficiently to sate the hungry crowd, but also to gather 12 baskets of leftovers.

We are the lowly

However, this miracle of making something “small” quite “big,” becomes “small” again in comparison to what follows in John 6. A handful of verses later, Christ “feeds” the crowd not with bread, but with his discourse on the “Bread of Life.” Within this discourse, Christ teaches us about the Eucharist:

“Jesus said to them, ‘Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day'” (Jn 6:53-54).

Christ himself is our life-giving bread: the love with which he offers his life to us is our nourishment. With this, the offering of the Bread of Life to the crowd — to us — we have reached the point at which we see that “we” are the little ones. And that we might become his “handmaidens.”

When we receive Christ in the Eucharist, we — the little, the paltry, the sinner — receive the love that makes all things “blessed.” The great Lord himself has miraculously come into our small souls. And so, with Mary, we might proclaim the Gospel in these words: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior. For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness.”