Wednesday 4 December 2024
The Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish, a Benedictine Catholic church at Tabgha, on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, believed to be the place where Jesus performed the miracle (Matthew 15.32-37).
Matthew 15:29-37
After Jesus had left that place, he passed along the Sea of Galilee, and he went up the mountain, where he sat down. Great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the maimed, the blind, the mute, and many others. They put them at his feet, and he cured them, so that the crowd was amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the maimed whole, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.
Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, ‘I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat; and I do not want to send them away hungry, for they might faint on the way.’ The disciples said to him, ‘Where are we to get enough bread in the desert to feed so great a crowd?’Jesus asked them, ‘How many loaves have you?’ They said, ‘Seven, and a few small fish.’ Then ordering the crowd to sit down on the ground, he took the seven loaves and the fish; and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all of them ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full.
'And all of them ate and were filled' (Matt 29.37).
Isaiah 25:6-10a
On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines,
of rich food filled with marrow, of well-matured wines strained clear.
And he will destroy on this mountain
the shroud that is cast over all peoples,
the sheet that is spread over all nations;
he will swallow up death for ever.
Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces,
and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the Lord has spoken.
It will be said on that day,
Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.
This is the Lord for whom we have waited;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain.
Psalm 23
from The Temple (1633), by George Herbert.
The God of love my shepherd is,
And he that doth me feed:
While he is mine, and I am his,
What can I want or need?
He leads me to the tender grasse,
Where I both feed and rest;
Then to the streams that gently passe:
In both I have the best.
Or if I stray, he doth convert
And bring my minde in frame:
And all this not for my desert,1
But for his holy name.
Yea, in deaths shadie black abode
Well may I walk, not fear:
For thou art with me; and thy rod
To guide, thy staff to bear.
Nay, thou dost make me sit and dine,
Ev’n in my enemies sight:
My head with oyl, my cup with wine
Runnes over day and night.
Surely thy sweet and wondrous love
Shall measure all my dayes;
And as it never shall remove,
So neither shall my praise.
Alexander von Zemlinsky. Psalm 23 (Op. 14). BBC Symphony Orchestra, cond. Nigel Short.
Advent Ear, by Edward Hays
With prayerful pleas
and Advent songs of longing,
I await the birth of God’s Anointed One.
Come, O Gift of heaven’s harmony,
and attune my third ear,
the ear of my heart,
so that I may hear,
just as Mary, faithful woman of Israel, heard.
O God, the time is short,
these days are too few
as I prepare for the feast
of the birth of Mary’s son.
Busy days, crowded to the brim,
with long lists of gifts to buy
and things that must be done.
Show to me, also your highly favored child,
how to guard my heart
from noise and hurry’s whirl,
so that I might hear your voice
calling my heart to create an empty space
that might be pregnant with heaven’s fire.
Quiet me within,
clothe my body in peacefulness,
that your Word
once again may take flesh—
this time, within me—
as once it did in holy Mary,
long Advent days ago.
—Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim. Forest of Peace, 2008.
Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life:
grant us to perfectly know your Son Jesus Christ
as the way, the truth and the life, and that,
following in the footsteps of friends like Nicholas
who loved the poor, the weak and the young,
and who gave what he had to enrich those who had but little,
we may faithfully walk in the way that leads to eternal life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.