Blessed Virgin Mary 

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊

Genesis 3:9-24*

Yahweh God called the man saying to him,

“Where are you?” He said, “I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” God said, “Who told you that you were naked?

Have you eaten of the tree I ordered you not to eat?” The man answered, “The woman you put with me gave me fruit from the tree and I ate it.” God said to the woman, “What have you done?” The woman said,     “The serpent deceived me and I ate.”

Yahweh God said to the serpent, “Since you have done that, be cursed (….) I will make you enemies, you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel.”

 To the woman, God said, “I will increase your suffering in child­bearing, and you will give birth to your child­ren in pain.(….) To the man, He said, “Because you have listened to your wife, (…..) cursed be the soil because of you!

In suffering you will provide food for yourself from it, all the days of your life. (…..) With sweat on your face you will eat your bread, until you return to clay, since it was from clay that you were taken, for you are dust and to dust you shall return.”(…..)

 Then Yahweh God said, “Man has now become like one of us, making himself judge of good and evil. Let him not stretch out his hand to take and eat from the tree of Life as well, and live forever.” So God cast him from the garden of Eden to till the soil from which he had been made. 

 

Ps 90:2-3, 4abc, 5-6, 12-13

In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge.

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊

Mark 8:1-10

 Jesus was in the midst of another large crowd, that obviously had nothing to eat. So he called So he called his disciples and said to them,   “I feel sorry for these people because they have been with me for three days and now have nothing to eat.

  If I send them to their homes hungry, they will faint on the way; some of them have come a long way.”  His disciples replied, “Where in a deserted place like this could we get enough bread to feed these people?”   He asked them, “How many loaves have you?” And they answered, “Se­ven.”

 Then he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground. Taking the seven loaves and giving thanks, he broke them and hand­ed them to his disciples to distribute. And they distributed them among the peo­ple.   They also had some small fish, so Jesus said a blessing and asked that these be shared as well.

 The people ate and were satisfied. The broken pieces were collected, seven wicker bas­kets full of leftovers.   Now there had been about four thousand people. Jesus sent them away   and immediately got into the boat with his disciples and went to the region of Dalmanutha.

 

Gospel Reflection：

Jesus is not only the bringer of the good news of God. He is also a sensitive man attuned to the needs of those who came to hear Him. That is why He voiced His concern to His disciples.

They in turn saw the impossibility of helping these people. They have so little for so much crowd, just seven loaves of bread. And they are in an out of the way place where no bread could be sourced.

It is in this instance that Jesus showed His disciples that the little they have if offered to God would be enough to start providing for the needs of God’s people. We need not start big when serving God and humanity. With God, the little things are the beginning of a wonderful enterprise later.