Saturday - February 12, 2022“Let us become saints so that after having been together on earth, we will be together forever in Heaven.”
--St. Pio of Pietrelcina
TODAY'S READINGS
SATURDAY OF THE FIFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
Lectionary: 334
1 Kgs 12:26-32; 13:33-34
Jeroboam thought to himself:
“The kingdom will return to David’s house.
If now this people go up to offer sacrifices
in the temple of the LORD in Jerusalem,
the hearts of this people will return to their master,
Rehoboam, king of Judah,
and they will kill me.”
After taking counsel, the king made two calves of gold
and said to the people:
“You have been going up to Jerusalem long enough.
Here is your God, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.”
And he put one in Bethel, the other in Dan.
This led to sin, because the people frequented those calves
in Bethel and in Dan.
He also built temples on the high places
and made priests from among the people who were not Levites.
Jeroboam established a feast in the eighth month
on the fifteenth day of the month
to duplicate in Bethel the pilgrimage feast of Judah,
with sacrifices to the calves he had made;
and he stationed in Bethel priests of the high places he had built.
Jeroboam did not give up his evil ways after this,
but again made priests for the high places
from among the common people.
Whoever desired it was consecrated
and became a priest of the high places.
This was a sin on the part of the house of Jeroboam
for which it was to be cut off and destroyed from the earth.
Responsorial Psalm 106:6-7ab, 19-20, 21-22
R. (4a) Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
We have sinned, we and our fathers;
we have committed crimes; we have done wrong.
Our fathers in Egypt
considered not your wonders.
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
They made a calf in Horeb
and adored a molten image;
They exchanged their glory
for the image of a grass-eating bullock.
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
They forgot the God who had saved them,
who had done great deeds in Egypt,
Wondrous deeds in the land of Ham,
terrible things at the Red Sea.
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
Alleluia Mt 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.
Gospel Mk 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.
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How does Jesus multiply what you need?
(1) He takes a little bread and fish.
Jesus doesn’t give us everything we need, by himself, with no effort from us. He says, “What can you give me? What do you have right now?” And he gladly accepts whatever we give him, no matter how small and seemingly insufficient.
He takes our offering very seriously, believing in its importance. Jesus knows its potential. He knows the good that can be done with it. He knows how he can build on it and multiply it.
(2) He blesses them.
After receiving from us what we offer to him, Jesus blesses our heavenly Father with it. With this gesture, which is also a prayer, he is saying that what we have offered to him is good enough — it is wonderful enough to please the Father and to honor him with it.
Furthermore, because every good thing we have — every good thought, every good desire, every good deed — originally came from God, Jesus is saying that we are blessed by the gifts the Father has given to us.
We participate in the miracle power of God by giving to Jesus what we have and letting him do with it whatever he knows is best.
(3) He gives them to his disciples to share with others.
Jesus never takes from us without blessing what we give him, and he never blesses it without multiplying it into something much bigger than we need.
Love is the power that multiplies small blessings into big ones. Love begins with God, bears fruit in us, and becomes a gift for others. This is why children are a sign that we are open to God’s power to multiply a little into a lot: A love between a husband and wife becomes love shared with a family.
Whatever we offer to God, in the hands of Jesus it will multiply. God never neglects our needs; quite the opposite — he makes everything multiply. In abundance. Overflowing. But why do we need the overflow? We don’t, but others do. Blessings always come with a purpose that’s bigger than us. Jesus takes what we give him, blesses it, and gives it back to us in abundance so that we have something to share with others.
The Miracle of Multiplication in the Catholic Mass:
During the Offertory, we are offering back to God the gifts and blessings that he has given to us. In thanksgiving, we give God the gift of money to help the Church do the works of Jesus. We give the gift of the fruits of our labors. What has he given you? What are your personality traits, the good ones, which God designed you to have? These are gifts from the God – you were made in his image – and at this point in the Mass, now is the time to thank him for what makes you the wonderful you that you are.
You can supernaturally place any of the giftedness of your life on the altar when the priest accepts (when Jesus accepts) the monetary collection. Now is the time to thank God for the blessings in your life by offering them back to him for his use. And thus the gifts are multiplied!
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The mother of Jesus promised St. Dominic that, “one day through the rosary & the scapular I shall save the world!”
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