Monday of the Eighteenth week in Ordinary Time 5 August 2013
First reading from the book of Numbers. 11:4b-15.
The children of Israel lamented, "Would that we
had meat for food!
We remember the fish we used to eat without cost in Egypt, and the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.
But now we are famished; we see nothing before us but this manna."
Manna was like coriander seed and had the appearance of bdellium.
When they had gone about and gathered it up, the people would grind it between millstones or pound it in a mortar, then cook it in a pot and make it into loaves, which tasted like cakes made with oil.
At night, when the dew fell upon the camp, the manna also fell.
When Moses heard the people, family after family, crying at the entrance of their tents, so that the LORD became very angry, he was grieved.
"Why do you treat your servant so badly?" Moses asked the LORD. "Why are you so displeased with me that you burden me with all this people?
Was it I who conceived all this people? or was it I who gave them birth, that you tell me to carry them at my bosom, like a foster father carrying an infant, to the land you have promised under oath to their fathers?
Where can I get meat to give to all this people? For they are crying to me, 'Give us meat for our food.'
I cannot carry all this people by myself, for they are too heavy for me.
If this is the way you will deal with me, then please do me the favor of killing me at once, so that I need no longer face this distress."
We remember the fish we used to eat without cost in Egypt, and the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.
But now we are famished; we see nothing before us but this manna."
Manna was like coriander seed and had the appearance of bdellium.
When they had gone about and gathered it up, the people would grind it between millstones or pound it in a mortar, then cook it in a pot and make it into loaves, which tasted like cakes made with oil.
At night, when the dew fell upon the camp, the manna also fell.
When Moses heard the people, family after family, crying at the entrance of their tents, so that the LORD became very angry, he was grieved.
"Why do you treat your servant so badly?" Moses asked the LORD. "Why are you so displeased with me that you burden me with all this people?
Was it I who conceived all this people? or was it I who gave them birth, that you tell me to carry them at my bosom, like a foster father carrying an infant, to the land you have promised under oath to their fathers?
Where can I get meat to give to all this people? For they are crying to me, 'Give us meat for our food.'
I cannot carry all this people by myself, for they are too heavy for me.
If this is the way you will deal with me, then please do me the favor of killing me at once, so that I need no longer face this distress."
Ps 81(80):12-13.14-15.16-17.
My people heard not my voice,
and Israel obeyed me not;
So I gave them up to the hardness of their hearts;
they walked according to their own counsels.”
“If only my people would hear me,
and Israel walk in my ways,
Quickly would I humble their enemies;
against their foes I would turn my hand.”
“Those who hated the LORD would seek to flatter me,
but their fate would endure forever,
While Israel I would feed with the best of wheat,
and with honey from the rock I would fill them.”
and Israel obeyed me not;
So I gave them up to the hardness of their hearts;
they walked according to their own counsels.”
“If only my people would hear me,
and Israel walk in my ways,
Quickly would I humble their enemies;
against their foes I would turn my hand.”
“Those who hated the LORD would seek to flatter me,
but their fate would endure forever,
While Israel I would feed with the best of wheat,
and with honey from the rock I would fill them.”
The Gospel of St Matt 14:13-21.
When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist,
he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. The crowds heard of this
and followed him on foot from their towns.
When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick.
When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said, "This is a deserted place and it is already late; dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves."
(Jesus) said to them, "There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves."
But they said to him, "Five loaves and two fish are all we have here."
Then he said, "Bring them here to me,"
and he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds.
They all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the fragments left over --twelve wicker baskets full.
Those who ate were about five thousand men, to say nothing for women and children.
When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick.
When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said, "This is a deserted place and it is already late; dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves."
(Jesus) said to them, "There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves."
But they said to him, "Five loaves and two fish are all we have here."
Then he said, "Bring them here to me,"
and he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds.
They all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the fragments left over --twelve wicker baskets full.
Those who ate were about five thousand men, to say nothing for women and children.
Commentary of the day :
The last words of today's Gospel passage in the context of the Catholic celebration of the Eucharist are very telling. The role of women in the Church's liturgy is pretty well reserved officially to menial tasks. Women are still officially excluded from priesthood, deaconate, being acolytes, lectors (reading the Scriptures) and in some countries are still not permitted to distribute Holy Communion.
The reason you have seen them exercising these ministries in some parishes is because some priests ignore the chauvinism of the Church's hierarchy and besides there's no enough men coming to church for them to do everything!
IT is obvious from the way the Mass is structured that it is not intended that children perform any role other than assist the priest at the altar and parrot back the responses to prayers which they have no hope of understanding.
IT is obvious from the way the Mass is structured that it is not intended that children perform any role other than assist the priest at the altar and parrot back the responses to prayers which they have no hope of understanding.
This thought came home very strongly to me at Mass yesterday when I watched the priest deliver every word of his homily to the adults in his congregation as the children around me in the congregation were just playing with their phones or chatting to each other.
I don't think that Jesus intended His Church to be so unfriendly.
The Mass is not a re-enactment of the Last Supper where no women or children were invited. It is a memorial of the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ instituted at the Last Supper for His priests (the apostles) so they would know what to do when they followed His instructions: "Do this in memorial of Me"
Blessed John-Paul II, Pope from 1978 to 2005
Encyclical « Ecclesia de Eucharistia », 3-5
I don't think that Jesus intended His Church to be so unfriendly.
The Mass is not a re-enactment of the Last Supper where no women or children were invited. It is a memorial of the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ instituted at the Last Supper for His priests (the apostles) so they would know what to do when they followed His instructions: "Do this in memorial of Me"
Blessed John-Paul II, Pope from 1978 to 2005
Encyclical « Ecclesia de Eucharistia », 3-5
"Taking the five loaves... he said the
blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples"
The Church was born of the paschal mystery. For this very reason the Eucharist, which is in an outstanding way the sacrament of the paschal mystery, stands at the centre of the Church's life. This is already clear from the earliest images of the Church found in the Acts of the Apostles: “They devoted themselves to the Apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (2:42). The “breaking of the bread” refers to the Eucharist. Two thousand years later, we continue to relive that primordial image of the Church. At every celebration of the Eucharist, we are spiritually brought back to the paschal Triduum: to the events of the evening of Holy Thursday, to the Last Supper and to what followed it. .. The agony in Gethsemane was the introduction to the agony of the Cross on Good Friday. The holy hour, the hour of the redemption of the world. Whenever the Eucharist is celebrated at the tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem, there is an almost tangible return to his “hour”, the hour of his Cross and glorification. Every priest who celebrates Holy Mass, together with the Christian community which takes part in it, is led back in spirit to that place and that hour. “Mysterium fidei! - The Mystery of Faith!”. When the priest recites or chants these words, all present acclaim: “We announce your death, O Lord, and we proclaim your resurrection, until you come in glory”. In these or similar words the Church, while pointing to Christ in the mystery of his passion, also reveals her own mystery: Ecclesia de Eucharistia – the Church's life is in the eucharist. By the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost the Church was born and set out upon the pathways of the world, yet a decisive moment in her taking shape was certainly the institution of the Eucharist in the Upper Room. Her foundation and wellspring is the whole Triduum paschale, but this is as it were gathered up, foreshadowed and “concentrated' for ever in the gift of the Eucharist. In this gift Jesus Christ entrusted to his Church the perennial making present of the paschal mystery.
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