Saturday February 13

FIFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

 

BREAD FOR THE HUNGRY

Introduction

      Genesis tells us that sin upsets the world in which people live, our relations with God, our relations with one another. Familiarity with God makes place for fear and distrust. Then the author(s) try to give a popular answer to the causes of evil, suffering, difficult work.

      Jesus, on the other hand, brings people together and gives them to eat when they are hungry, as a sign of his mercy, his efforts toward unity and of the food of the eucharist. Let us seek this unity and this food.

 

Opening Prayer

To those who are not filled with themselves,
you reveal yourself Lord, our God,
as the giver of all good things.
Make us yearn for justice and peace
and for all things that endure.
Give us a copious meal
of your word and your life
through him who is our bread of life,
Jesus Christ, your Son and our Lord.

Reading 1: Gen 3:9-24

The LORD God called to Adam and asked him, “Where are you?”
He answered, “I heard you in the garden;
but I was afraid, because I was naked,
so I hid myself.”
Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked?
You have eaten, then,
from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!”
The man replied, “The woman whom you put here with meB
she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.”
The LORD God then asked the woman,
“Why did you do such a thing?”
The woman answered, “The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it.”

Then the LORD God said to the serpent:

“Because you have done this, you shall be banned
from all the animals
and from all the wild creatures;
On your belly shall you crawl,
and dirt shall you eat
all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
He will strike at your head,
while you strike at his heel.”

To the woman he said:

“I will intensify the pangs of your childbearing;
in pain shall you bring forth children.
Yet your urge shall be for your husband,
and he shall be your master.”

To the man he said:  “Because you listened to your wife
and ate from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat,

“Cursed be the ground because of you!
In toil shall you eat its yield
all the days of your life.
Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you,
as you eat of the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
shall you get bread to eat,
Until you return to the ground,
from which you were taken;
For you are dirt,
and to dirt you shall return.”

The man called his wife Eve,
because she became the mother of all the living.

For the man and his wife the LORD God made leather garments,
with which he clothed them.
Then the LORD God said: “See!  The man has become like one of us,
knowing what is good and what is evil!
Therefore, he must not be allowed to put out his hand
to take fruit from the tree of life also,
and thus eat of it and live forever.”
The LORD God therefore banished him from the garden of Eden,
to till the ground from which he had been taken.
When he expelled the man,
he settled him east of the garden of Eden;
and he stationed the cherubim and the fiery revolving sword,
to guard the way to the tree of life.

Responsorial Psalm: Ps 90:2, 3-4abc, 5-6, 12-13

(1) In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge.
Before the mountains were begotten
and the earth and the world were brought forth,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
R. In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge.
You turn man back to dust,
saying, “Return, O children of men.”
For a thousand years in your sight
are as yesterday, now that it is past,
or as a watch of the night.
R. In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge.
You make an end of them in their sleep;
the next morning they are like the changing grass,
Which at dawn springs up anew,
but by evening wilts and fades.
R. In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge.
Teach us to number our days aright,
that we may gain wisdom of heart.
Return, O LORD! How long?
Have pity on your servants!
R. In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge.

Alleluia: Mt 4:4b

Alleluia, alleluia.
One does not live on bread alone,
but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel: Mk 8:1-10

In those days when there again was a great crowd without anything to eat,
Jesus summoned the disciples and said,
“My heart is moved with pity for the crowd,
because they have been with me now for three days
and have nothing to eat.
If I send them away hungry to their homes,
they will collapse on the way,
and some of them have come a great distance.”
His disciples answered him, “Where can anyone get enough bread
to satisfy them here in this deserted place?”
Still he asked them, “How many loaves do you have?”
They replied, “Seven.”
He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground.
Then, taking the seven loaves he gave thanks, broke them,
and gave them to his disciples to distribute,
and they distributed them to the crowd.
They also had a few fish.
He said the blessing over them
and ordered them distributed also.
They ate and were satisfied.
They picked up the fragments left over–seven baskets.
There were about four thousand people.

He dismissed the crowd and got into the boat with his disciples
and came to the region of Dalmanutha.

 

Intercessions:

–         For agencies of international aid, for governments and the United Nations, that they may use all human potentials and all the resources of science and nature to feed the hungry and to develop the earth, we pray:

–         For all Christian communities, that they may not abandon anyone in need and that we may open-handedly serve one another, we pray:

–         For this community gathered here to break the Lord’s bread, that the Spirit of the Lord make us the sign of God’s generosity and love, we pray:

 

Prayer over the Gifts

God, our generous Father,
in these simple gifts of bread and wine,
of everyday food and drink,
you let Jesus, your Son,
give himself to us
as the bread of life.
In the strength of this bread,
may we become to one another
fresh bread broken and shared
to nourish one another
on our journey to you.
We ask you this through Christ, our Lord.

 

Prayer after Communion

We give you thanks, generous Father,
for giving us Jesus, your Son,
as our food for the road
to you and to one another.
Give us the will and the creativity
to bring to a hungry world
food and a fair share
in the goods of the earth.
But help us also to break the bread
of dignity and hope to all.
And be yourself the highest fulfillment
of all our aspirations,
through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

 

Blessing

When we pray the Our Father, we ask the Lord to give us our daily bread. That is not only the food of every day, and the Eucharist, but all we need from day to day. May God give you this and bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

 

Commentary

The readings are about the abundance that comes from God. This is what salvation means – the fulfilling of all our needs: spiritual, emotional, social and physical. The Gospel, brings a scene which is a kind of parable, that Jesus stands for: the compassion of God and his desire that the needs of all be supplied.

And again and again people who have dedicated themselves to caring for the hungry and homeless have found what they needed up on their doorstep. There is a crucial element in today’s Gospel we cannot overlook. It was not Jesus but his disciples who distributed the food. In our world there is an abundance. Food production outpaces population growth. If there is hunger, malnutrition and other unmet needs, it is because we, God’s stewards, are failing, in our task of distribution.

If there is hunger and suffering, it is not the work of God. It is our failure to work. Every day is a time of giving. We could ask ourselves: To whom are we giving? With whom are we sharing what we have or can afford to buy? Perhaps/ we could widen the circle this year/ with gifts that mean life or death for the receivers. /Beneficiaries who will never know who their benefactors are and who will not be able to give anything back….Jesus’ way of giving so quietly/ that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.