The miracles which our Lord, Jesus Christ, performed are indeed divine works; and from things that can be seen they prompt the human mind to an understanding of God. For because he is not such a substance as can be seen with the eyes, and because his miracles, by which he governs the whole world and administers all creation, have lost their impressiveness by constant repetition, so that almost no one deigns to notice the wondrous and stupendous works of God in any grain of seed, in accordance with his very own mercy he has reserved for himself certain works which he might do at an opportune time outside the usual course and order of nature, so that, by seeing works, not greater but irregular, they might be amazed for whom the daily ones had become unimpressive.
For the governance of the whole world is a greater miracle than the satisfying of five thousand men from five loaves. Yet, at the former miracles no one is amazed; at the latter one, men are amazed, not because it is greater but because it is rare. For who even now feeds the whole world except he who creates crops from a few grain seeds? Therefore, he did as God does. For, by the same means by which he multiplies crops from a few grains, he multiplied in his hands the five loaves. The power was in fact in Christ’s hands; but those five loaves were like seeds, not entrusted to the earth, to be sure, but multiplied by him who made the earth.
Therefore this miracle was put before the senses, that the mind might be lifted up to him by it, and it was displayed to the eyes, that the understanding might be put to work upon it so that we might revere the invisible God through visible works, and so that we, lifted up to faith and purged by faith, might desire to see him even invisibly whom, though invisible, we have come to know from visible things.
– St. Augustine of Hippo, Tractate 24 on the Gospel of John
Locus Communis 