I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat

 In those days, the multitude being very great and having nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples to Him and said to them, "I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat.  And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way; for some of them have come from afar."  Then His disciples answered Him, "How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?"  He asked them, "How many loaves do you have?"  And they said, "Seven."  So He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground.  And He took the seven loaves and gave thanks, broke them and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and they set them before the multitude.  They also had a few small fish; and having blessed them, He said to set them also before them.  So they ate and were filled, and they took up seven large baskets of leftover fragments.   Now those who had eaten were about four thousand.  And He sent them away, immediately got into the boat with His disciples, and came to the region of Dalmanutha.

- Mark 8:1-10

From there He arose and went to the region of Tyre and Sidon.  And He entered a house and wanted no one to know it, but He could not be hidden.  For a woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit heard about Him, and she came and fell at His feet.  The woman was a Greek, a Syro-Phoenician by birth, and she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter.  But Jesus said to her, "Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs."  And she answered and said to Him, "Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children's crumbs."  Then He said to her, "For this saying go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter."  And when she had come to her house, she found the demon gone out, and her daughter lying on the bed.   Again, departing from the region of Tyre and Sidon, He came through the midst of the region of Decapolis to the Sea of Galilee.  Then they brought to Him one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they begged Him to put His hand on him.  And He took him aside from the multitude, and put His fingers in his hears, and He spat and touched his tongue.  Then, looking up to heaven, He sighed, and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened."  Immediately his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly.  Then He commanded them that they should tell no one; but the more He commanded them, the more widely they proclaimed it.  And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, "He has done all things well.  He makes both the deaf to hear and the mute to speak."

  In those days, the multitude being very great and having nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples to Him and said to them, "I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat.  And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way; for some of them have come from afar."  Then His disciples answered Him, "How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?"  He asked them, "How many loaves do you have?"  And they said, "Seven."  So He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground.  And He took the seven loaves and gave thanks, broke them and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and they set them before the multitude.  They also had a few small fish; and having blessed them, He said to set them also before them.  So they ate and were filled, and they took up seven large baskets of leftover fragments.   Now those who had eaten were about four thousand.  And He sent them away, immediately got into the boat with His disciples, and came to the region of Dalmanutha.  This is a second feeding of a multitude, and should not be confused with the first feeding of five thousand (see here).  They are two distinct miracles, which Jesus will reference in our next reading in this chapter (Mark 8:19-21).  My study bible cites the variation in the number of loaves, and the spiritual significance attributed to the numbers.  In the first feeding in the wilderness, there were five loaves, which symbolize the Law (the first five books of the Old Testament, also called the Pentateuch or Torah).  Here there are seven.  Seven symbolizes completeness, here indicating spiritual perfection.  In the first instance, therefore, Christ reveals Himself as fulfilling the Law.  But here He shows that it is He who grants spiritual perfection.  Also symbolic is that the crowds had been with Christ for three days, the number of days that He would rest in the tomb.  My study bible says that participation in His perfection can only come through being united to Christ's death (see Romans 6:3-5).

Why two feedings in the wilderness?  One other interesting difference between the two is also the setting of each.  The first one happens when Jesus tries to take the disciples aside for rest after the completion of their first apostolic mission.  But the second happens during a different phase of His ministry, in which Jesus is avoiding communities where the Jewish leadership is solidly in control, after a confrontation with Pharisees and scribes.  In the first the disciples had just returned from their mission to Jewish towns, and His mission had grown so popular that the people followed Him.  In today's reading, Jesus has come from spending time in Gentile territory; first in the region of Tyre and Sidon, and then returning to the Sea of Galilee via a long, out-of-the-way route through the Decapolis, a region of mixed populations but whose culture was primarily Greek-speaking (see yesterday's reading, above).    It mirrors the whole of Jesus' ministry, in which His word and mission come first primarily to the Jews, but will be taken to the whole world.  Even the seven baskets of leftover fragments (again, seven symbolizing completion) tell us that story spiritually.  The four thousand people represent the world that is waiting for Christ of the Cross.  Whichever ways we choose to look at these readings, they tell us of the abundance from Christ that is unstoppable and unlimitable.  It is such not only for those to whom He was first sent, as child born to Mary in Bethlehem, but to the whole world to whom His message continues to spread.  That is, to those everywhere and all who will be born in the future.  The three days symbolizing His time in the tomb can even be taken in reference to the time in which the Word went even to those who were deceased.    The abundance with which His life and word can feed us is simply incalculable.  It is there for us at any time, at any moment in our lives.  At the very end of Matthew's Gospel, in His final appearance to the remaining eleven disciples, Jesus says to them, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."   To say that "I am with you always" means much more than we think it does at face value.  Jesus uses an expression that literally means "all of the days" -- meaning every moment of every single day until the completion of the age.  As He is addressing these words to His disciples, we can understand very well its timelessness, in that it applies to everyone in the Church, those who were, and those who are, and those who are yet to come.  Born to Mary in a cave where animals were kept, Jesus fulfills His mission quite clearly as One who must go out to the whole of the world, and not stop until this time is full and complete.  The abundance from the two fish continues, as wide and as deep as all the seas and all the abundance in them, but without any discernible end.