The Lord invites us: Listen to me and you will
have good things to eat and rich food to enjoy. May the Lord nourish you with
his body and may he always be with you. R/ And also with you.
Introduction by the Celebrant
1. The Hungry Are Fed
In every Eucharistic celebration, Jesus invites
us to eat and drink with him. We are the people not only at the Last Supper but
also at the multiplication of bread. We were and are present there. He does not
want us to remain hungry for we can find in him all that is good and valuable.
He gives us himself, and he is asking us to do the same: give the people food
to eat, give them yourselves. We ask the Lord to help us do this.
2. You Give Them to Eat
The media remind us almost daily of the hunger
for food in many parts of the world. There is also much spiritual hunger,
hunger and thirst for values, for something to hold on to and to hope for.
Jesus gave to the people the food of compassion, his word of forgiveness, and
especially the food of himself, of his body. He invites us, his disciples
today, to give ourselves away as the food and drink of others. We ask for the
courage to do so during this Eucharist.
Penitential Act
How grateful have we been to Jesus for giving
himself to us? How much have we given ourselves to others? Let us examine
ourselves before the Lord. (pause)
Lord Jesus, you are the bread that gives life
to the world: Lord, have mercy. R/ Lord, have mercy.
Jesus Christ, you are the bread that
strengthens us on the journey of life: Christ, have mercy. R/ Christ,
have mercy.
Lord Jesus, you are the bread that gives us
everlasting life: Lord, have mercy. R/ Lord, have mercy.
In your kindness, forgive us, Lord. Sustain us
on our journey and lead us to everlasting life. R/ Amen.
Opening Prayer
Let us pray that we may learn from Christ to
feed the hungry (pause)
God, our compassionate Father, you let your Son
Jesus Christ give food to all who were hungry in any way. Make us compassionate
for all the poor of our day. Teach us to see their needs, to suffer with them,
to share their anguish, to bind their wounds, and to appease their hungers. Give
us the strength to do all this by the power of the food of himself which Jesus
gives us in each Eucharist. We ask this through Christ our Lord. R/ Amen.
First Reading: Isaiah
55:1-3
Come, Listen, Eat and Drink: In a time of need, God
encourages his people through the prophet. To those who hunger and thirst for
him and listen to him, everything will be given in abundance.
Second Reading: Romans
8:35, 37-39
Nothing Can Separate Us from the Love of
Christ: In times of need and difficulty, Christians
should keep trusting in God. Our faith assures us that God will never abandon
us, for he has shown us how much he loves us by giving us his Son, Jesus.
Gospel: Matthew
14:13-21
They all ate and Were Satisfied: In
terms close to those of the institution of the Eucharist, the evangelist tells
how Jesus gave food to the hungry people and they could eat until they were
satisfied. The disciples distributed the food.
Prayers of the Faithful
When the people that followed him were hungry,
the heart of Jesus was filled with pity. Let us bring before him all the cares
and hungers of our brothers and sisters in need, and let us say: R/ Lord,
satisfy our hunger.
– For the pope, bishops and
priests, that they may satisfy the people’s hunger for love and justice, truth
and hope by proclaiming without compromise the Lord’s message of Good News, let
us pray: R/ Lord, satisfy our hunger.
– For the Church, the body of
Christ, that it may help people everywhere to discover and express their
deepest aspirations and enrich them with the higher values of the Gospel, let
us pray: R/ Lord, satisfy our hunger.
– For the political leaders of the
world, for scientists and economists, that they may cooperate unselfishly to
solve the problem of hunger in the world and bring to a hungry world not only
food but also dignity, justice and peace, let us pray: R/ Lord, satisfy
our hunger.
– For the sick and the lonely, for
the handicapped and those who are discouraged, for those who hunger for love
and acceptance, that our love and concern may be signs to them that God does
not abandon them, let us pray: R/ Lord, satisfy our hunger.
– For all of us here, that we may
busy ourselves not only with the immediate needs of ourselves and our families,
but keep hungering for the higher goods of God’s Word and for the Eucharist,
let us pray: R/ Lord, satisfy our hunger.
Lord Jesus Christ, let no trial or worry
separate us from the love of the Father in heaven, which has come to us through
you, our Lord, forever and ever. R/ Amen.
Prayer over the Gifts
God our Father, we give you thanks for bread
and wine and for making them the signs of your Son’s presence in our midst. Through
him we bring before you the miseries and aspirations of all. Let him multiply
here for us the bread of life to make us strong and the wine of joy to give us
hope. We ask you this through Christ our Lord. R/ Amen.
Introduction to the Eucharistic Prayer
What Jesus did for the hungry crowd he does
again for us here and now: he gives us something to eat, and it is himself he
gives. Let us thank the Father with Jesus.
Introduction to the Lord’s Prayer
Let us pray to God our Father for the food we
need every day, also for the food of the Eucharist. R/ Our Father...
Breaking of the Bread
As the rite of the breaking of bread is almost
unnoticed—it takes place normally during the Agnus Dei—and is yet very
meaningful, it may be good to call attention to it once in a while after the
prayer for peace, with words like these, while holding up the host and then
breaking it:
We break this bread of Jesus Christ as a sign
that he himself was broken to give us his life. Let this breaking also be a
sign that each of us is willing to share one’s food and life with others and to
live together in peace with all.
The peace of the Lord be with you always. R/ And
also with you.
Invitation to Communion
This is the body of Christ, the Lamb of God and
the bread which the Father gives us. Happy are we to be invited to the table which
the Lord has prepared for us. R/ Lord, I am not worthy...
Prayer after Communion
Our God and Father, through the bread of life of
your Son Jesus Christ, multiply in us our capacity to love. Give us the courage
to put into practice the words spoken to us by your Son: “You yourselves give
the people to eat.” Help us to share our food with them and also our joy and
our compassion, our hopes and our love. We ask this in the name of Jesus the
Lord. R/ Amen.
Blessing
When we come together and receive our Lord in
the Eucharist, he is here for us not merely to console us and to make us strong
for our Christian living. He also challenges us to do as he did: to share our
food with the hungry and to give ourselves to one another. May the Lord give
you this strength and bless you: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
R/ Amen.
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord in one
another. R/ Thanks be to God.
REFLECTIONS
Matthew 14: 13-21
Running away is not an option
To run away from disturbing and
frustrating life situations is a natural human tendency. When faced with a
burdensome relationship, setbacks in professional life, our natural reaction
would be to run away from them. This is what we find in the response of the
disciples in today's gospel: That the crowd was too large and, time was too
late and they were in a deserted place – they did not want to take up the
burden of finding food for all those people. So, they suggest to Jesus: Dismiss
the crowds and let them find food for themselves.
It looks quite normal to us,
because the disciples are our representatives, who think and behave like us.
While explaining the passage in the Gospel according to John, Fr. Armellini
said, Jesus sees the multitude, he sees the needs of the hungry; and he gives a
clear invitation to his disciples as well to look up from our little world,
from our interests, and become aware of the reality in which so many of our
brothers and sisters who live in hunger, in misery, who are desperate, and
suffer violence. This is not the world that God wanted.
Jesus has seen the hunger of
humanity; hungry not only of food, but of all the needs that must be satisfied
to be fully human. The life of the sick person is not fully human, neither is
the life of the lonely, the abandoned, the one who lacks affection, the one who
faces injustice, the one who has no home, no job, the one who cannot form a
family. How to respond to all these forms of hunger so that humanity be
satiated?
That’s why the disciples suggest
to Jesus: It is beyond our capabilities to handle. Ask these people to go away
and buy their own food. Sending them away would be our safest option, so that
we don’t have to worry about where would they find food, at what price, would
there be someone who could not afford to buy; would there be people who would
buy more and store up their tomorrows and thus there be no more food for others
to buy…
Material goods are a temptation;
our instinct tells us to take possession of them, to accumulate them, to keep
them for ourselves, at most to share them with our family members, but then,
even in the family, when it comes to money, divisions and disagreements begin.
The first letter to Timothy says that the greed of money is the root of all the
evils in the world.
Today's miracle of feeding the 5000 teaches us one simple truth: The wealth or treasures that we have in our hands do not belong to us. Everything belongs to God, and we are administering goods that are not ours.
