“And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes.”
And the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish — the twelve basketfuls of leftovers exceed the original provision (five loaves, two fish) by an enormous factor. The number twelve is likely significant: twelve baskets for the twelve disciples, or twelve tribes, or both. The leftovers are not waste but the abundance that remains after everyone has eaten their fill. In the scarcity logic of the disciples, there was not enough to feed one person's meal to five thousand; in the kingdom's abundance logic, the feeding of five thousand produces twelve basketfuls of surplus.
Church Fathers on Mark 6:43
The Lord, placing before them, first, what is most profitable, that is, the food of the word of God, afterwards also gave the multitude food for their bodies; in beginning to relate which, the Evangelist say, 'And when the day was now far spent, His disciples came unto Him, and said, This is a desert place.
The time being far spent, points out that it was evening. Wherefore Luke says, 'But the day had begun to decline.'
This in the Gospel of John is the answer to Philip, but Mark gives it as the answer of the disciples, wishing it to be understood that Philip made this answer as a mouthpiece of the others; although he might put the plural number for the singular, as is usual.
Read all 13 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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