The miracle of the loaves and the fish is one of the most important miracles of Jesus mentioned in the New Testament. It’s in all four gospels: Mark reports it twice. Most people who know anything at all about Jesus know this story in some form or another. We read Matthew’s version at Mass last Sunday.

Miracles teach us many things. Defying reasonable explanations, they’re signs that God is present in our world and not distant or uninvolved in human affairs. They’re striking acts of divine love and mercy breaking the usual quiet and unseen presence of God among us. In the life of Jesus, miracles are one of the ways God confirms his divine mission.

Miracles teach us other things too. For instance, the story of the loaves and fish reminds us of  the Holy Eucharist, the sacrament in which Jesus through signs of bread and wine nourishes and supports us on our journey through life.  Just as God sent heavenly food,  manna, to the Jews as they made their way through the desert to the Promised Land, so Jesus gives this Bread as food on our way to eternal life.

Miracles invariably involve ordinary human beings as they unfold. Unfortunately, we sometimes overlook their human dimension.

A little boy had five loaves and two fish, John’s account of the miracle relates. (John 6, 9) He evidently gave them to Jesus. No one seems to remember his name. A small detail in the story, we may say. In this same miracle, it’s the disciples of Jesus who alert him to the hunger of the crowds and after the miracle distribute the bread and the fish to them. Minor details of the story, we may think.

Yet, it’s good to keep in mind that in every miracle Jesus seems to involve people,  who cry out their need, like the blind men along the road, or bring him a request for someone else, like the Roman soldier asking for his servant, or bring him the sick and the needy,  like the care-givers who followed him wherever he went.

The cure of the paralyzed man is one of the most colorful stories in the gospel. Those who brought him to Jesus  (how many were there anyway?) carry the helpless man  to the house where Jesus was and when they can’t get through the door because of the crowds, they climb onto the roof, cut a hole in it, and lower him down before Jesus.

The man was cured and walked out of the house carrying his mat with him. It was a miracle, truly,  but what about those who brought him? Some human cooperation like theirs is found in almost all of the miracle stories of the gospel.  A rare exception may be the story from John’s gospel of the paralyzed man who sat for 37 years near the Pool of Bethsaida and had no one to help him enter its healing waters. No one brought him to the attention of Jesus, it seems. so Jesus spontaneously heals him, because he’s so helplessly on his own.

God seldom acts alone, the miracle stories tell us; he invites human cooperation. Our challenge, then, is to respond and do our part in God’s work in this world.  That response may be as small as the little boy’s response who gave over his five loaves and two fish. But it’s important just the same.

How do we prepare ourselves for this role? I think  by daily prayer.