Opening Prayer
God of Love. I try so hard to love You! I try so hard to please You! I work so hard to earn Your love. Yet it is humbling how freely given is your love. It is humbling and freeing to be confronted by the more powerful truth that You are Love – that You love us in Jesus, not for what we do, but simply because You love us! I stand silent before the awesome power of being loved!!! You take the initiative – You empty Yourself in love, offering Yourself to us in Jesus. Only when I love am I of You! When I love, Jesus is loving in and through me. In the Mark Gospel, you showed us the way of love – the way of Eucharist – the way of Your reign: that sharing what we have is food for others. You teach us not to hoard the resources You have given us, not to put our personal needs before the most basic needs of others – but to trust Your loving providence, with the faith and hope that there will be more than enough for everyone. Loving and Generous Jesus, sometimes I think it would be easier if you just intervened and multiplied things to feed everyone. But you demand to work your miracles and create your reign through us, sharing and establishing justice. Your Kingdom of love is a kingdom of generosity and justice. Today, make me as loving and self-emptying as you are! Be love through me!
Reading 1 1 John 4:7-10
Beloved, let us love one another,
because love is of God;
everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.
Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.
In this way the love of God was revealed to us:
God sent his only-begotten Son into the world
so that we might have life through him.
In this is love:
not that we have loved God, but that he loved us
and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.
Responsorial Psalm Psalm 72:1-2, 3-4, 7-8
R. (see 11) Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
O God, with your judgment endow the king,
and with your justice, the king's son;
He shall govern your people with justice
and your afflicted ones with judgment.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
The mountains shall yield peace for the people,
and the hills justice.
He shall defend the afflicted among the people,
save the children of the poor.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
Justice shall flower in his days,
and profound peace, till the moon be no more.
May he rule from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
Alleluia Luke 4:18
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
The Lord has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor
and to proclaim liberty to captives.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel Mark 6:34-44
When Jesus saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them,
for they were like sheep without a shepherd;
and he began to teach them many things.
By now it was already late and his disciples approached him and said,
"This is a deserted place and it is already very late.
Dismiss them so that they can go
to the surrounding farms and villages
and buy themselves something to eat."
He said to them in reply,
"Give them some food yourselves."
But they said to him,
"Are we to buy two hundred days' wages worth of food
and give it to them to eat?"
He asked them, "How many loaves do you have? Go and see."
And when they had found out they said,
"Five loaves and two fish."
So he gave orders to have them sit down in groups on the green grass.
The people took their places in rows by hundreds and by fifties.
Then, taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven,
he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples
to set before the people;
he also divided the two fish among them all.
They all ate and were satisfied.
And they picked up twelve wicker baskets full of fragments
and what was left of the fish.
Those who ate of the loaves were five thousand men.
- Readings for the Optional Memorial of Saint Raymond of Penyafort, priest
Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States, second typical edition, Copyright © 2001, 1998, 1997, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine; Psalm refrain © 1968, 1981, 1997, International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc. All rights reserved. Neither this work nor any part of it may be reproduced, distributed, performed or displayed in any medium, including electronic or digital, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.