Reading 1 1 Jn 4:7-10
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 PS 72:1-2, 3-4, 7-8
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 Lk 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 Mk 6:34-44
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.
FACTS IT TO ME
Jesus "broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples to distribute. He divided the two fish among all of them and they ate until they had their fill." –Mark 6:41-42
In the Christmas season, we celebrate the historical event that God became man and was born in Bethlehem. Christmas should not be about fictitious reindeer, snowmen, and other cartoon characters. Christmas is about the Word of God literally becoming flesh (Jn 1:14). Jesus' birth in a stable at Bethlehem is not just a symbol but a fact.
In today's Gospel reading, we read about another fact: the multiplication of the loaves and the fish. This multiplication is not a midrash but a literal miracle. Jesus did not get people to share their supper; He created their supper out of nothing (cf Heb 11:3). The apostles knew that the people in the crowd did not have food (Mk 6:36). The apostles were of the same culture as the crowd. They knew the habits of these people much better than we do. They knew it would take "two hundred days' wages for bread to feed" the crowd (Mk 6:37). Even if the apostles weren't accountants, it was easy for them to count 5,000 men since "the people took their places in hundreds and fifties" (Mk 6:40, 44). Jesus gave the loaves and fish to the apostles to distribute (Mk 6:41). They could see whether the loaves and fish were being created or merely unpacked. The objective interpretation of this Bible passage for almost two thousand years has been that Jesus did a literal, historical, factual miracle by multiplying the loaves and fish (see Catechism, 1335).
In this Christmas season, believe in miracles literally.
| PRAYER: | Father, may I filter my life through Your Word and not vice versa. |
| PROMISE: | "Love, then, consists in this: not that we have loved God but that He has loved us and has sent His Son as an Offering for our sins." –1 Jn 4:10 |
| PRAISE: | St. John, a missionary to the USA from Bohemia, spread the Faith to Maryland, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. |
6am seems to be too late to post this.
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