2nd day after Epiphany
First Letter of 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 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.
Psalms 72(71),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.
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.
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.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint 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.
COMMENTARY
"Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us," (Rm 8:34) is present in many ways to his Church:195 in his word, in his Church's prayer, "where two or three are gathered in my name," (Mt 18:20) in the poor, the sick, and the imprisoned,197 in the sacraments of which he is the author, in the sacrifice of the Mass, and in the person of the minister. But "he is present . . . most especially in the Eucharistic species." (Vatican II SC 7).
The mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species is unique… In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist "the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained…" (Council of Trent) "This presence is called 'real' - by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be 'real' too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present." (Saint Paul VI)…
Worship of the Eucharist… "The Catholic Church has always offered and still offers to the sacrament of the Eucharist the cult of adoration, not only during Mass, but also outside of it, reserving the consecrated hosts with the utmost care, exposing them to the solemn veneration of the faithful, and carrying them in procession." (Saint Paul VI) It is highly fitting that Christ should have wanted to remain present to his Church in this unique way. Since Christ was about to take his departure from his own in his visible form… he wanted us to have the memorial of the love with which he loved us "to the end," (Jn 13:1) even to the giving of his life. In his Eucharistic presence he remains mysteriously in our midst as the one who loved us and gave himself up for us, (Gal 2:20)…under signs that express and communicate this love.
dailygospel.org
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