Saturday February 12, 2022

Saturday of 5th Week in Ordinary Time

 

Bread for the Hungry

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.

 

First Reading: 1 Kings 12:26-33; 13:33-34

But then Jeroboam thought, “It won’t be long before the kingdom is reunited under David. As soon as these people resume worship at The Temple of God in Jerusalem, they’ll start thinking of Rehoboam king of Judah as their ruler. They’ll then kill me and go back to King Rehoboam.”

So the king came up with a plan: He made two golden calves. Then he announced, “It’s too much trouble for you to go to Jerusalem to worship. Look at these—the gods who brought you out of Egypt!” He put one calf in Bethel; the other he placed in Dan. This was blatant sin. Think of it—people traveling all the way to Dan to worship a calf!

And that wasn’t the end of it. Jeroboam built forbidden shrines all over the place and recruited priests from wherever he could find them, regardless of whether they were fit for the job or not. To top it off, he created a holy New Year festival to be held on the fifteenth day of the eighth month to replace the one in Judah, complete with worship offered on the Altar at Bethel and sacrificing before the calves he had set up there. He staffed Bethel with priests from the local shrines he had made. This was strictly his own idea to compete with the feast in Judah; and he carried it off with flair, a festival exclusively for Israel, Jeroboam himself leading the worship at the Altar.

After this happened, Jeroboam kept right on doing evil, recruiting priests for the forbidden shrines indiscriminately—anyone who wanted to could be a priest at one of the local shrines. This was the root sin of Jeroboam’s government. And it was this that ruined him.

 

Gospel: Mark 8:1-10 

At about this same time he again found himself with a hungry crowd on his hands. He called his disciples together and said, “This crowd is breaking my heart. They have stuck with me for three days, and now they have nothing to eat. If I send them home hungry, they’ll faint along the way—some of them have come a long distance.”

 His disciples responded, “What do you expect us to do about it? Buy food out here in the desert?”

 He asked, “How much bread do you have?”

“Seven loaves,” they said.

So Jesus told the crowd to sit down on the ground. After giving thanks, he took the seven bread loaves, broke them into pieces, and gave them to his disciples so they could hand them out to the crowd. They also had a few fish. He pronounced a blessing over the fish and told his disciples to hand them out as well. The crowd ate its fill. Seven sacks of leftovers were collected. There were well over four thousand at the meal. Then he sent them home. He himself went straight to the boat withhis disciples and set out for Dalmanoutha.

 

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. Amen.

 

Reflection:

Feeding the hungry is God’s work.

To a present-day reader of the gospel, the behaviour of those four thousand people would seem absurd. They simply decide to come far away from their homes, to follow a preacher, disregarding their needs for food. The Gospel insists that the listeners of the Word of God chose to remain close to Christ and he was “moved with pity” and he sought a remedy for their hunger.

The Gospel gives us a vital lesson for life: When we persevere to “remain in him” (John 15:4), Christ himself provides for our needs. He knows our exact circumstances- how far we’ve come and how hungry we are. He provides for our every need.

As the Son of God, Jesus had the power to fix the problem of hunger. But he didn’t fix it himself. He chose to invite people to be missionaries to feed the hungry. “How many loaves do you have?” is the question. Today, Jesus asks us as well. We answer by dedicating our time, talents, and treasures to Christ.

In the Apostolic Exhortation Christus Vivit #174 , Pope Francis appeals to the world: “Please, do not leave it to others to be protagonists of change. You are the ones who hold the future! Jesus was not a bystander. He got involved. Don’t stand aloof, but immerse yourselves in the reality of life, as Jesus did. Above all, in one way or another, fight for the common good, serve the poor, be protagonists of the revolution of charity and service, capable of resisting the pathologies of consumerism and superficial individualism.”

People who have dedicated themselves to caring for the hungry and homeless have always found what they needed, at 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. Our world has enough resources to satisfy the hunger of all its peoples, but not enough to feed the greed of even one person. If there is hunger, malnutrition and other unmet needs in the world today, it is because we, are failing, in our task of distribution.

Hunger and suffering are not the work of God, instead it is our failure to do any work. Our everyday should be a time of giving. We could ask ourselves: To whom are we giving? Can we widen our circle of people to whom we reach out, with gifts that mean life or death for the receivers or beneficiaries who will never know who their benefactors are and who will not be able to give anything back….this is Jesus’ way of giving, so quietly/ that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.

 

Video available on Youtube: Feeding the hungry is God’s work.