Saturday February 12, 2022

 

 

Saturday of 5th Week in Ordinary Time

Bread for the Hungry

 

Introduction

The first reading describes the efforts of king Jeroboam to strengthen the political separation of the northern tribes of Israel by adding to it a religious separation.

Jesus, on the other hand, brings people together and gives them something 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: 1 Kgs12:26-32; 13:33-34

Jeroboam thought to himself:
“The kingdom will return to David’s house.
If now this people go up to offer sacrifices
in the temple of the LORD in Jerusalem,
the hearts of this people will return to their master,
Rehoboam, king of Judah,
and they will kill me.”
After taking counsel, the king made two calves of gold
and said to the people:
“You have been going up to Jerusalem long enough.
Here is your God, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.”
And he put one in Bethel, the other in Dan.
This led to sin, because the people frequented those calves
in Bethel and in Dan.
He also built temples on the high places
and made priests from among the people who were not Levites.
Jeroboam established a feast in the eighth month
on the fifteenth day of the month
to duplicate in Bethel the pilgrimage feast of Judah,
with sacrifices to the calves he had made;
and he stationed in Bethel priests of the high places he had built.

Jeroboam did not give up his evil ways after this,
but again made priests for the high places
from among the common people.
Whoever desired it was consecrated
and became a priest of the high places.
This was a sin on the part of the house of Jeroboam
for which it was to be cut off and destroyed from the earth.

 

Responsorial Psalm PS 106:6-7ab, 19-20, 21-22

(4a) Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
We have sinned, we and our fathers;
we have committed crimes; we have done wrong.
Our fathers in Egypt
considered not your wonders.
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
They made a calf in Horeb
and adored a molten image;
They exchanged their glory
for the image of a grass-eating bullock.
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
They forgot the God who had saved them,
who had done great deeds in Egypt,
Wondrous deeds in the land of Ham,
terrible things at the Red Sea.
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.

 

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:

Everyone Matters

Within the space of three chapters, Mark presents two instances of miraculous feeding, Mk 6:35-44 being the first one. The first feeding happened at a place between Tiberias and Capernaum, and the crowd was mostly Jewish. There, Jesus was consumed by preaching, and the disciples alert him to the physical needs of the people. In the second, the setting is near Decapolis (cf. 7:31), the eastern part, the “other side” populated mostly by pagans. Here it is Jesus who becomes concerned about people going hungry and alerts the disciples who don’t seem very interested and bring up excuses. When it comes to being Church, if we limit ourselves to ministering to our own, Jesus keeps shaking us awake to the everyday needs of those on the other side as well—for everyone matters, along with every need of theirs, both spiritual and physical, in his conception of the Church.

Reflection taken from Bible Diary 2022;

written by Fr.Paulson Velyannoor, CMF