DAILY GOSPEL: 12/02/2011
«Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.» John 6,68
Saturday of the Fifth week in Ordinary Time
Book of Genesis 3:9-24.
The LORD God then called to the man 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 me--she gave me fruit from the tree, 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 bad! 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.
Psalms 90:2.3-4.5-6.12-13.
Before the mountains were born, the earth and the world brought forth, from eternity to eternity you are God.
But humans you return to dust, saying, "Return, you mortals!"
A thousand years in your eyes are merely a yesterday. Before a watch passes in the night,
you have brought them to their end; They disappear like sleep at dawn; they are like grass that dies.
It sprouts green in the morning; by evening it is dry and withered.
Teach us to count our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart.
Relent, O LORD! How long? Have pity on your servants!
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 8:1-10.
In those days when there again was a great crowd without anything to eat, he 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?" "Seven," they replied.
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 them
and got into the boat with his disciples and came to the region of Dalmanutha.
The LORD God then called to the man 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 me--she gave me fruit from the tree, 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 bad! 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.
Psalms 90:2.3-4.5-6.12-13.
Before the mountains were born, the earth and the world brought forth, from eternity to eternity you are God.
But humans you return to dust, saying, "Return, you mortals!"
A thousand years in your eyes are merely a yesterday. Before a watch passes in the night,
you have brought them to their end; They disappear like sleep at dawn; they are like grass that dies.
It sprouts green in the morning; by evening it is dry and withered.
Teach us to count our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart.
Relent, O LORD! How long? Have pity on your servants!
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 8:1-10.
In those days when there again was a great crowd without anything to eat, he 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?" "Seven," they replied.
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 them
and got into the boat with his disciples and came to the region of Dalmanutha.
Mc 8,1-10
Saint Ambrose (c.340-397), Bishop of Milan and Doctor of the Church
Commentary on the Gospel of Saint Luke, VI, 73-88 (cf. SC 45, p. 254f. rev.)
"If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will collapse on the way"
Lord Jesus, how well I know you have no wish to allow these people here with me to remain hungry but to feed them with the food you distribute, and so, strengthened with your food, they will have no fear of collapsing from hunger. I know, too, that you have no wish to send us away hungry, either... As you have said: you do not want them to collapse on the way, meaning to collapse in the byways of this life, before reaching the end of the road, before coming to the Father and understanding that you come from the Father...
Our Lord takes pity, then, so that none may collapse along the way... Just as he makes it rain on the just as well as the unjust (Mt 5,45) so he feeds the just as well as the unjust. Was it not thanks to the strength of the food that the holy prophet Elijah, when he was collapsing on the way, was able to walk for forty days? (1Kgs 19,8). It was an angel who gave that food to him but, in your case, it is Christ himself who feeds you. If you preserve the food you have received in this way then you will walk, not forty days and forty nights... but for forty years, from your departure from the borders of Egypt to your arrival in the land of plenty, the land where milk and honey flow (Ex 3,8)...
And so Christ shares out the foodstuffs and, there is no question, he wants to give it to all. He withholds it from no one for he provides for everyone. Nevertheless, when he breaks the loaves and gives them to the disciples, unless you hold out your hands to receive your portion, you will collapse along the way... This bread that Jesus breaks is the mystery of the Word of God: it increases as it is distributed. With only a few words Jesus has provided abundant nourishment for all peoples. He has given us his words as bread and, while we are tasting them, they increase in our mouths... Even as the crowds are eating, the pieces increase and become more numerous to such an extent that, in the end, the leftovers are even more plentiful than the loaves that were shared.
Our Lord takes pity, then, so that none may collapse along the way... Just as he makes it rain on the just as well as the unjust (Mt 5,45) so he feeds the just as well as the unjust. Was it not thanks to the strength of the food that the holy prophet Elijah, when he was collapsing on the way, was able to walk for forty days? (1Kgs 19,8). It was an angel who gave that food to him but, in your case, it is Christ himself who feeds you. If you preserve the food you have received in this way then you will walk, not forty days and forty nights... but for forty years, from your departure from the borders of Egypt to your arrival in the land of plenty, the land where milk and honey flow (Ex 3,8)...
And so Christ shares out the foodstuffs and, there is no question, he wants to give it to all. He withholds it from no one for he provides for everyone. Nevertheless, when he breaks the loaves and gives them to the disciples, unless you hold out your hands to receive your portion, you will collapse along the way... This bread that Jesus breaks is the mystery of the Word of God: it increases as it is distributed. With only a few words Jesus has provided abundant nourishment for all peoples. He has given us his words as bread and, while we are tasting them, they increase in our mouths... Even as the crowds are eating, the pieces increase and become more numerous to such an extent that, in the end, the leftovers are even more plentiful than the loaves that were shared.
St Benedict of Anian, Abbot (c.750 - 821)
Other saints of the daySAINT BENEDICT OF ANIAN
(c. 750-821)
(c. 750-821)
Benedict was the son of Aigulf, Governor of Languedoc, and was born about 750. In his early youth he served as cup-bearer to King Pepin and his son Charlemagne, enjoying under them great honors and possessions.
Grace entered his soul at the age of twenty, and he resolved to reek the kingdom of God with his whole heart. Without relinquishing his place at court, he lived there a most mortified life for three years; then a narrow escape from drowning made him vow to quit the world, and he entered the cloister of St. Seine.
In reward for his heroic austerities in the monastic state, God bestowed upon him the gift of tears, and inspired him with knowledge of spiritual things. As procurator, he was most careful of the wants of the brethren, and most hospitable to the poor and to guests.
Declining to accept the abbacy, he built himself a little hermitage on the brook Anian, and lived some years in great solitude and poverty; but the fame of his sanctity drawing many souls around him, he was obliged to build a large abbey, and within a short time governed three hundred monks.
He became the great restorer of monastic discipline throughout France and Germany. First, he drew up with immense labor a code of the rules of St. Benedict, his great namesake, which he collated with those of the chief monastic founders, showing the uniformity of the exercises in each, and enforced by his "Penitential" their exact observance; secondly, he minutely regulated all matters regarding food, clothing, and every detail of life; and thirdly, by prescribing the same for all, he excluded jealousies and insured perfect charity.
In a Provincial Council held in 813, under Charlemagne, at which he was present, it was declared that all monks of the West should adopt the rule of St. Benedict.
He died in 821.
Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]
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