This Sunday, I’ll be preaching on Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand as recorded in Mark 6. In my reading, I came across this great section of a hymn from Prudentius (c. 348-410), a Latin poet and hymn-writer, entitled A Hymn on the Trinity. Enjoy.
The banquet ends, plates still overflow,
And with the crumbs twelve baskets then
they fill.
The stuffed boy strives with undigested fare,
The waiter groans beneath his heavy load.
Who can a great feast spread from stores
so few?
Who but the maker of our frame and all
That nurtures it, who shaped the world
from naught?
Almighty God without the aid of seed
Fashioned the earth, not as the sculptor
works
To lift the block of bronze from metal fused.
All that now is was nought: that nothingness
Was into being brought and bidden grow.
Small was the first creation, but it grew
Till it became the mighty universe.
Therefore, when I behold that meager fare
Thus multiplied within the hands of Christ,
Can I doubt that the elemental forms
First made by him from nothing, by degrees
Have grown to that perfection now we see?
Lest fragments should be trodden on and
lost,
When men had fed, or should become the
spoil
Of wolves or foxes or of petty mice,
Twelve men were charged to heap in baskets
full
The gifts of Christ to keep and spread afar.
