During Advent the first and second readings assigned to a given day share a common theme. For example, today we hear from Isaiah a vision that “the LORD of hosts will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines on this mountain.” In the Gospel of Matthew that vision is fulfilled when Jesus provides a mountaintop picnic of bread and fish to the hungry crowd. Both stories describe a meal on a mountain but the true similarity is the vision that it has of a renewed humanity. The “veil” that separates people from one another was destroyed on the mountain. Instead of people being greedy for all they could get they shared with one another and there were even left overs.
