“I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now been with me three days, and have nothing to eat:”
I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat — the compassion (splagchnizomai) is the same visceral compassion as in the first feeding (Mark 6:34). The three days is specific and new: this crowd has stayed with Jesus through three days of teaching — a sustained commitment that goes beyond a single day's curiosity. If I send them home hungry — the concern is not sentimental but practical and personal: Jesus takes responsibility for people who have stayed with him through three days of teaching and now have no food.
Church Fathers on Mark 8:2
After the Lord had performed the former miracle concerning the multiplication of the loaves, now again, a fitting occasion presents itself, and He takes the opportunity of working a similar miracle.
Why they who came from afar hold out for three days, Matthew says more fully: 'And He went up into a mountain, and sat down there, and great multitudes came unto Him, having with them many sick persons, and cast them down at Jesus' feet, and He healed them.' [Matt. 15:29-30]
Or else, the seven loaves are the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the fragments of the loaves are the mystical understanding of the first week.
Read all 15 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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