Today's Mass readings / Commentary (making priests of the commong people [against God's way..] / Jesus feeds the many/ Transubstantiation)

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February 13, 2010

Saturday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 334

Reading I
1 Kgs12:26-32; 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.

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.

.

***Nowadays, this is what a lot of people (Catholics. so called) want… for common pepole to do the work of the priest… Yes, we are all considered Priest, Prophet & King… but not ministerally… Priests have to have 8 years of higher education &… etc… and be ordained… in order to transubstantiate the hosts…(Jesus does that, but can only work through a priest) and other things… i tend to think that @ Vatican II, masons and others who were there trying to thwart the Church (some priests are masons, unfortunately…), got a lot of this kind of thing started… :mad: this desire for common people to do what the priest does…

this reminds me of a saying, which i know i will mangle… but anyhow someone once said something to the effect that the most cold-hearted people are the ones who most love change… (not improvement,** but just change…) and there is no improvement that can done on the ancient Church other than members thereof getting closer to Jesus & loving Him more…

2nd reading: Jesus feeds the many, which pre-figures Transubstantiation… where He gives us His very self as food… *🙂
 
Jeroboam is thinking in worldly, secular terms when he makes the calves and sets up a false feast day - “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.”

He denies the reality of God who is present in a special way in the Temple in Jerusalem. He constructs false gods made of gold - he worships and puts his faith in things of this world.

The disciples of Jesus are thinking in the same worldly, secular terms when they ask, "Where can anyone get enough bread to satisfy them here in this deserted place?” They have already seen Jesus feed the multitude once back in Mark 6:30-44. Even so, they can only think in terms of this world.

Jesus acts in a supernatural way to provide for the needs of the people. We are called on to have faith that “with God all things are possible.” Jeroboam’s failure to have this kind of faith causes him to set up false gods and worship the things of this world - golden calves. The disciples also don’t have this kind of faith (even though they’ve seen it happen before). We too can end up putting our trust in people or things of this world if we see only the secular, material world as real and doubt the existence and reality of God and that He is working in our lives.

We would be like the disciples, in a “deserted place” (wilderness in the Douay Rheims, desert in the RSV-CE) - a place without God, a place where we are alone, fending for ourselves, creating false gods to put our faith in, and we would end up “cut off and destroyed from the earth” as surely as the house of Jeroboam is.
 
"the king made two calves of gold
and said to the people:
…Here is your God, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.”
– I wonder why he thought they would kill him, just because
they wanted to follow God. I guess he thought desparately
back to the time when Aaron feared the people would kill
him, and wanted to just to whatever Aaron did to get out
of it. I am shocked that the people fell for it again, and I
want to know: Why did he make 2? Aaron only made 1.

“They forgot the God who had saved them,
who had done great deeds in Egypt”
– See, but they didn’t forget. They were told by Jeroboam,
and Aaron before him, that these statues Were that God.
I don’t understand the way their brain reasoned this out…

“He dismissed the crowd and got into the boat with his disciples and came to the region of Dalmanutha.”
– He only stayed there for a minute. The Pharisees there
asked Him for a sign and He said no, then left there.
I wonder if the word “Dalmanutha” means something?

Mea Culpa - I had no idea how the reading and psalm of
today related to the gospel till I read your
post. Thanks a lot! 🙂

Distracted - About the desire for common people to do what
the priest does. If they are appointed by the
church, then aren’t certain things the priest does
O.K.? I’m really not familiar with the “masons”…
 
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