FEBRUARY 11, 2017 : SATURDAY OF THE FIFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Saturday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 334

Reading 1GN 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 PsalmPS 90:2, 3-4ABC, 5-6, 12-13

R. (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.

AlleluiaMT 4:4B

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

GospelMK 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.

www.usccb.org

Meditation: "Can one feed with bread in the desert?"

Can anything on earth truly satisfy the hunger we experience for God? The enormous crowd that pressed upon Jesus for three days were hungry for something more than physical food. They hung upon Jesus' words because they were hungry for God. When the disciples were confronted by Jesus with the task of feeding four thousand people many miles away from any source of food, they exclaimed: Where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them? The Israelites were confronted with the same dilemma when they fled Egypt and found themselves in a barren wilderness. 

Like the miraculous provision of manna in the wilderness, Jesus, himself provides bread in abundance for the hungry crowd who came out into the desert to seek him. The Gospel records that all were satisfied and they took up what was leftover. When God gives he gives abundantly - more than we deserve and more than we need so that we may have something to share with others as well. The Lord Jesus nourishes and sustains us with his life-giving word and with his heavenly bread.

Jesus nourishes us with the true bread of heaven
The sign of the multiplication of the loaves, when the Lord says the blessing, breaks and distributes through his disciples, prefigures the superabundance of the unique bread of his Eucharist or Lord's Supper. When we receive from the Lord's table we unite ourselves to Jesus Christ, who makes us sharers in his body and blood. Ignatius of Antioch (35-107 A.D.) calls it the "one bread that provides the medicine of immortality, the antidote for death, and the food that makes us live for ever in Jesus Christ" (Ad Eph. 20,2). This supernatural food is healing for both body and soul and strength for our journey heavenward. 

When you approach the Table of the Lord, what do you expect to receive? Healing, pardon, comfort, and refreshment for your soul? The Lord has much more for us, more than we can ask or imagine. The principal fruit of receiving from the Lord's Table is an intimate union with Christ himself. As bodily nourishment restores lost strength, so the Eucharist strengthens us in charity and enables us to break with disordered attachments to creatures and to be more firmly rooted in the love of Christ. Do you hunger for Jesus, the true "bread of life"?

"Lord Jesus, you alone can satisfy the hunger in our lives. Fill me with grateful joy and eager longing for the true heavenly bread which gives health, strength, and wholeness to body and soul alike.”

Daily Quote from the early church fathers: Breaking the bread of God's Word, by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D.

"In expounding to you the Holy Scriptures, I as it were break bread for you. If you hunger to receive it, your heart will sing out with the fullness of praise (Psalm 138:1). If you are thus made rich in your banquet, be not meager in good works and deeds. What I am distributing to you is not my own. What you eat, I eat; what you live upon, I live upon. We have in heaven a common store-house - from it comes the Word of God." (excerpt from SERMONS ON NEW TESTAMENT LESSONS 45.1)

www.dailyscripture.net

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11, MARK 8:1-10
Weekday
(Genesis 3:9-24; Psalm 90)

KEY VERSE: "Then, taking the seven loaves he gave thanks, broke them, and gave them to his disciples to distribute" (v 6).
TO KNOW: This is the second account of the multiplication of the loaves in Mark's Gospel. The first took place in Galilee with the Jews (Mk 6:34-44). This second event occurred in Gentile territory. When Jesus saw the hungry crowd, he took pity on them, while his disciples wondered how they could feed them. Jesus took the seven loaves offered to him (a number representing the seven ministers in the Gentile Christian church, Acts 6:1-6). Then he gave thanks to God, broke them, and gave them to his disciples to distribute. When everyone had eaten their fill, the fragments were gathered in seven baskets (twelve baskets in the first miracle representing the Twelve Apostles). In this feeding of the Gentile people, Jesus demonstrated that all people had equal right to the Eucharist.
TO LOVE: Can you explain the Eucharist to those not of our faith?
TO SERVE: Lord Jesus, gather all of your people to give thanks and praise at your table. 

Optional Memorial to Our Lady of Lourdes

Our Lady appeared 18 times to Bernadette Soubirous, a poor, young girl in the grotto of Masabielle, close to Lourdes in France in 1858. Our Lady asked for a chapel to be built on the site of the apparitions and when Bernadette asked who she was, replied: "I am the Immaculate Conception." Our Lady asked Bernadette to wash her face at the fountain but there was no fountain there, so Bernadette dug a hole in the ground, and washed her face with muddy water. People ridiculed her, but there sprung up the famous fountain of water that has healing attributes. Many sick people have bathed themselves in that water and from the time of the Apparitions until now, 69 miraculous cures have been recognized by the Bishops. Millions of people from all over the world go to Lourdes yearly in the hope of obtaining help from the generous Mother of God. Bernadette became a nun. She died when she was 35 and her body is still incorrupt.

World Day of the Sick

Pope John Paul II initiated the day in 1992 to encourage people to pray for those who suffer from illness and for their caregivers. The Pope himself had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s a year before, in 1991, and it is considered that his own illness was impetus for his designation of the day. People around the world take the time to pray for the sick and for those who work very hard to alleviate the sufferings of the sick. Faith organizations mark this day especially to provide the sick with medicines, food, and spiritual guidance.

www.togetherwithgodsword.com

Saturday 11 February 2017

Sat 11th. Our Lady of Lourdes, Genesis 3:9-24. In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge—Ps 89(90):2-6, 12-13. Mark 8:1-10.

Readings

‘He fills the hungry with good things.’

Whether it is at Cana or, as here, in ‘a deserted place’, Jesus provides sustenance for the hungry or the thirsty in abundance. Today’s account of the feeding of the 4,000, coming as it does immediately after Jesus’ ministry in the Decapolis, likely included more than a few Gentiles among the crowd. In this it differs from the gospel accounts of the feeding of the 5,000. However, as in those narratives, Jesus’ words and actions have a liturgical flavour.

In the words of the psalmist, ‘He satisfies the thirsty, and fills the hungry with good things’ (Ps 107:9). Providing food and drink for those in need constitutes the first of the seven corporal works of mercy and are among the criteria invoked in Matthew’s account of the Last Judgment (Mt 25:35,42). As such, they are a defining characteristic of our Christian vocation.

www.pray.com.au

OUR LADY OF LOURDES

On Feb. 11, the Catholic Church celebrates the liturgical memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, recalling a series of 18 appearances that the Blessed Virgin Mary made to a 14-year-old French peasant girl, Saint Bernadette Soubirous.

The Marian apparitions began Feb. 11, 1858, ended July 16 that year and received the local bishop's approval after a four-year inquiry.

Coming soon after the 1854 dogmatic definition of her Immaculate Conception, the Virgin Mary's appearances at Lourdes turned the town into a popular travel destination. Thousands of people say their medical conditions have been cured through pilgrimage, prayer and the water flowing from a spring to which Bernadette was directed by the Blessed Virgin. Experts have verified 67 cases of miraculous healing at Lourdes since 1862.

St. Bernadette also has her own liturgical memorial, which occurs Feb. 18 in France and Canada and April 16 elsewhere. Born in January 1844, the future visionary was the first child of her parents Francois and Louise, who both worked in a mill run by Francois. Their family life was loving but difficult. Many of Bernadette's siblings died in childhood, and she developed asthma. Economic hardship and an injury suffered by her father cost them the mill in 1854.

Years of poverty followed, during which Bernadette often had to live apart from her parents and work rather than attending school. In January 1858 she returned to her family, whose members were living in a cramped single room. Strongly committed to her faith, Bernadette made an effort to learn the Church's teachings despite her lack of formal education.

On Feb. 11, 1858, Bernadette went to gather firewood with her sister and a friend. As she approached a grotto near a river, she saw a light coming from a spot near a rosebush. The light surrounded a woman who wore a white dress and held a rosary. Seeing the lady in white make the sign of the Cross, Bernadette knelt, took out her own rosary, and began to pray. When she finished praying, the woman motioned for her to approach. But she remained still, and the vision disappeared.

Her companions had seen nothing. Bernadette described the lady in white to them, demanding they tell no one. But the secret came out later that day. The next Sunday, Bernadette returned to the grotto, where she saw the woman again. The identity of the apparition, however, would remain unknown for several weeks.

Some adults accompanied Bernadette on her third trip, on Feb. 18, though they did not see the vision she received. The woman in white asked the girl to return for two weeks. “She told me also,” Bernadette later wrote, “that she did not promise to make me happy in this world, but in the next.” A group of family members and others went with her to the cave the next day, but only the young peasant girl saw the woman and heard her words.

Over the next few days, the number of people in attendance at the cave swelled to more than 100. A parish priest, Father Peyramale, became concerned – as did the police. On Feb. 24, 250 people saw Bernadette break into tears, but only she heard the woman’s message: “Penance! Penance! Penance! Pray to God for sinners. Go, kiss the ground for the conversion of sinners.”

A larger crowd was there on Feb. 25 – but they were shocked to see Bernadette drinking from a muddy stream and eating weeds. The apparition had told her to drink the water, and the weed-eating was a penitential act. Onlookers, meanwhile, saw only the girl’s unusual behavior, and popular fascination turned to ridicule and suspicion.

On Feb. 27, Bernadette made a joyful discovery: the spring from which she drank was not muddy now, but clear. As the crowds continued to gather, this change was noticed, and a woman with a paralyzed arm came to the water hoping to be healed. Four years later, her case would be recognized as the first miraculous healing at Lourdes. Public interest continued, and Bernadette heard a recurring message from the vision: “Go, tell the priests to bring people here in procession and have a chapel built here.”

While others were quick to conclude that Bernadette was seeing the Virgin Mary, the visionary herself did not claim to know the woman’s identity. As she conveyed the repeated message to Fr. Peyramale, the priest grew frustrated and told Bernadette to ask the woman her name. But when she did so, the woman smiled and remained silent. Her identity remained a mystery after the initial two-week period.

Three weeks later, on the Feast of the Annunciation, Bernadette visited the cave again. When she saw the lady, she kept asking to know her identity. Finally, the woman folded her hands, looked up and said: “I am the Immaculate Conception.” The seer, devout but uneducated, did not know what these words meant. She related them to Fr. Peyramale, who was stunned and informed his bishop.

Bernadette saw the Blessed Virgin Mary two more times in 1858: on the Wednesday after Easter, and on the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. In 1862, the local bishop declared the apparitions worthy of belief.

St. Bernadette left Lourdes in 1866 to join a religious order in central France, where she died after several years of illness in 1879. By the time of her death, a basilica had been built and consecrated at the apparition site, under the leadership of Fr. Peyramale.

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint.php?n=144

LECTIO DIVINA: MARK 8,1-10

Lectio Divina: 

 Saturday, February 11, 2017

1) Opening prayer

Father,
watch over your family
and keep us safe in your care,
for all our hope is in you.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

2) Gospel reading - Mark 8,1-10

And now once again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat. So Jesus called his disciples to him and said to them, 'I feel sorry for all these people; they have been with me for three days now and have nothing to eat. If I send them off home hungry they will collapse on the way; some have come a great distance.'

His disciples replied, 'Where could anyone get these people enough bread to eat in a deserted place?' He asked them, 'How many loaves have you?' And they said to him, 'Seven.'

Then he instructed the crowd to sit down on the ground, and he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and began handing them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them among the crowd. They had a few small fishes as well, and over these he said a blessing and ordered them to be distributed too. They ate as much as they wanted, and they collected seven basketfuls of the scraps left over.

Now there had been about four thousand people. He sent them away and at once, getting into the boat with his disciples, went to the region of Dalmanutha.

3) Reflection

• The Gospel today speaks about the second multiplication of the loaves. The thread of union of several episodes in this part of the Gospel of Mark is the food, the bread. After the banquet of death (Mk 6, 17-29), comes the banquet of life (Mk 6, 30-44). During the crossing of the Lake the disciples are afraid, because they have understood nothing of the bread multiplied in the desert (Mk 6, 51-52). Then Jesus declares that all food is pure (Mk 7, 1-23). In the conversation of Jesus with the Canaanite woman, the pagans ate the crumbs which fell from the table of the children (Mk 7, 24-30). And here, in today’s Gospel, Mark speaks about the second multiplication of the loaves (Mk 8, 1-10).

• Mark 8, 1-3: The situation of the people and the reaction of Jesus. The crowds, which gathered around Jesus in the desert, had no food to eat. Jesus calls the disciples and presents the problem to them: “I feel pity for this people, because for three days they have been following me and have not eaten. If I send them away to their homes without eating, they will faint on the way; and some come from very far!” In this concern of Jesus there are two important things: a) People forget the house and the food and follow Jesus to the desert! This is a sign that Jesus aroused great sympathy, up to the point that people followed him in the desert and remain with him three days! b) Jesus does not ask them to solve the problem. He only expresses his concern to the disciples. It seems to be a problem without a solution.

• Mark 8, 4: The reaction of the disciples: the first misunderstanding. The disciples then think of a solution, according to which someone had to bring bread for the people. It does not even occur to them that the solution could come from the people themselves. They say: “And how could we feed all these people in the desert?” In other words, they think of a traditional solution. Someone has to find the money, buy bread and distribute it to the people. They themselves perceive that, in that desert, to buy bread, this solution is not possible, but they see no other possibility to solve the problem. That is, if Jesus insists in not sending the people back to their homes, there will be no solution to feed them!

• Mark 8, 5-7: The solution found by Jesus. First of all, he asks how much bread they have: “Seven!” Then he orders the people to sit down. Then, he takes those seven loaves of bread, gives thanks, broke them and gave them to the disciples to distribute them; and they distributed them to the crowds. And he did the same thing with the fish. Like in the first multiplication (Mk 6, 41), the way in which Mark describes the attitude of Jesus, recalls the Eucharist. The message is this: the participation in the Eucharist should lead to the gift and to the sharing of the bread with those who have no bread.

• Mark 8, 8-10: The result: Everyone ate, they were satisfied and bread was left over! This was an unexpected solution, which began within the people, with the few loaves of bread that they had brought! In the first multiplication, twelve baskets of bread were left over. Here, seven. In the first one, they served five thousand persons. Here four thousand. In the first one there were five loaves of bread and two fish. Here, seven loaves of bread and a few fish.

• The time of the dominant ideology. The disciples thought of one way, Jesus thinks in another way. In the way of thinking of the disciples there is the dominant ideology, the common way of thinking of persons. Jesus thinks in a different way. It is not by the fact of going with Jesus and of living in a community that a person is already a saint and renewed. Among the disciples, the old mentality always emerges again, because of the “leaven of Herod and of the Pharisees” (Mk 8, 15), that is, the dominant ideology, had profound roots in the life of those people. The conversion requested by Jesus is a deep conversion. He wants to uproot the various types of “leaven”.

* the “leaven” of the community closed up in itself, without any openness. Jesus responds: “The one who is not against is in favour!” (Mk 9, 39-40). For Jesus, what is important is not if the person forms part or not of the community, but if he/she is generous, available or not to do the good which the community has to do.

* the “leaven” of the group which considers itself superior to others. Jesus responds: “You do not know what spirit animates you” (Lc 9, 55).

* the “leaven” of the mentality of class and of competition, which characterizes the society of the Roman Empire and which permeated the small community which was just beginning. Jesus Responds: “Let the first one be the last one” (Mk 9, 35). This is the point on which he insists the most and it is the strongest point of his witness: “I have not come to be served, but to serve” (Mc 10, 45; Mt 20, 28; Jo 13, 1-16).

* the “leaven” of the mentality of the culture of the time Jesus responds: “Allow the little ones to come to me!” which marginalized the little ones, the children. (Mk 10, 14). He indicates that the little ones are the professors of adults: “anyone who does not accept the Kingdom of God as a child, will not enter in” (Lk 18, 17).

As it happened in the time of Jesus, also today, the Neo-liberal mentality is reviving and arises in the life of the communities and of the families. The reading of the Gospel, made in community, can help us to change life, and the vision and to continue to convert ourselves and to be faithful to the project of Jesus.

4) Personal questions

• We can always meet misunderstandings with friends and enemies. Which is the misunderstanding between Jesus and the disciples on the occasion of the multiplication of the loaves? How does Jesus face this misunderstanding? In your house, with your neighbours or in the community, have there been misunderstandings? How have you reacted? Has your community had misunderstandings or conflicts with the civil or ecclesiastical authority? How did this happen?

• Which is the leaven which today prevents the realization of the Gospel and should be eliminated?

5) Concluding prayer

Lord, you have been our refuge from age to age.

Before the mountains were born,

before the earth and the world came to birth,

from eternity to eternity you are God. (Ps 90,1-2)

www.ocarm.org