The gospel for Saturday of the fifth week in Ordinary Time is taken from St. Mark, eighth chapter, first through the tenth verse. 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 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, 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 4,000 people. He dismissed the crowd, got into the boat with his disciples and came to the region of Dalmanutha. This is the only miracle that appears in all four of the Gospels. So they saw it as very important.

And there’s a simplicity to it that I think is so interesting about worship. It is pondering who God really is in Jesus. It’s listening to the story over and over and over again. And then knowing that to be able to live this story, we don’t do it out of our own strength. We do it filled with the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit dwells within us, the same incarnate Spirit that was in Jesus.

And we’re told to go and share it because we’ve been fed the closing prayer. Father, you are the one who shares with us the truth. But we must remember always you also empower us to teach this truth by living it, by understanding it, by becoming it incarnate, just as Jesus was incarnate. Divinity, bless us with this wisdom. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.