January 08, 2019 Tuesday, After Epiphany
1st Reading: 1 Jn 4:7–10
Gospel: Mk 6:34–44
When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. It was now getting late, so his disciples came to him and said, “This is a lonely place and it is now late. You should send the people away and let them go to the farms and villages around here to buy themselves something to eat.” Jesus replied, “You yourselves give them something to eat.” They answered, “If we are to give them food, we must go and buy two hundred silver coins’ worth of bread.” But Jesus said, “You have some loaves: how many? Go and see.” The disciples found out and said, “There are five loaves and two fish.” Then he told them to have the people sit down together in groups on the green grass. This they did in groups of hundreds and fifties. And Jesus took the five loaves and the two fish and, raising his eyes to heaven, he pronounced a blessing, broke the loaves and handed them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them. They all ate and everyone had enough. The disciples gathered up what was left and filled twelve baskets with broken pieces of bread and fish. Five thousand men had eaten there.
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
Today’s Gospel reading shows us how God responds to the needs of his people. The disciples were asking Jesus where to get food to feed the crowd that had followed them to the deserted place. “Feed them yourselves,” Jesus instructed. But they could only procure two fish and five loaves of bread. Jesus did not push them beyond their limits. With the two fish and five loaves that they could offer, Jesus did the rest to solve the crisis. It was then that the famous miracle of the loaves happened.
God is ready to solve problems related to human needs. But we must declare what we have and put them at God’s disposal. Dole out is not God’s manner of managing his affairs as provider of creation. He wants people to be involved with the little resources they can bring out. If God were to promote the dole out system we’d be reduced to arid and parched land that do nothing but wait for the rain to fall from the heavens. What then are we gifted with intelligence for? We are not God’s co-workers for nothing. We work like everything depended on us even as we pray like everything depended on God. Mindful that we are intelligent beings, God checks on what we are capable of doing before he intervenes. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com.
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