10 February. Saturday of Week 5

Saint Scholastica, virgin

1st Reading: 1 Kings 12:26-32; 13:33-34

(Jeroboam rebels in the north, and appoints his own sanctuaries, priests and feast-days.)

Then Jeroboam said to himself, “Now the kingdom may well revert to the house of David. If this people continues to go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, the heart of this people will turn again to their master, King Rehoboam of Judah; they will kill me and return to King Rehoboam of Judah.” So the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold. He said to the people, “You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” He set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan. And this thing became a sin, for the people went to worship before the one at Bethel and before the other as far as Dan. He also made houses on high places, and appointed priests from among all the people, who were not Levites.

Jeroboam appointed a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month like the festival that was in Judah, and he offered sacrifices on the altar; so he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he had made. And he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made.

Even after this event Jeroboam did not turn from his evil way, but made priests for the high places again from among all the people; any who wanted to be priests he consecrated for the high places. This matter became sin to the house of Jeroboam, so as to cut it off and to destroy it from the face of the earth.

Responsorial Psalm (from Ps 106)

Resp./ Remember us, O Lord, for the love you have for your people

Our sin is the sin of our fathers;
we have done wrong, our deeds have been evil.
Our fathers when they were in Egypt
paid no heed to your wonderful deeds. R./

They fashioned a calf at Horeb
and worshipped an image of metal,
exchanging the God who was their glory
for the image of a bull that eats grass. R./

They forgot the God who was their saviour,
who had done such great things in Egypt,
such portents in the land of Ham,
such marvels at the Red Sea. R./

Gospel: Mark 8:1-10

(Jesus, out of compassion for hungry people, multiplies bread and fish for about four thousand people.)

In those days when there was again a great crowd without anything to eat, Jesus called his disciples and said to them, “I have compassion 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 faint on the way – and some of them have come from a great distance.” His disciples replied, “How can one feed these people with bread here in the desert?” He asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” They said, “Seven.” Then he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the crowd. They had also a few small fish; and after blessing them, he ordered that these too should be distributed. They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. Now there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away. And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha.

The two ways

The kind of lifestyle that leads to spiritual death can present itself in either secular or in the religious form. In today’s story from the Book of Kings, turning away from God came through misuse of the religious realm. Jeroboam uses the instruments of religion, the priesthood, sanctuaries and feastdays to control the riches of the northern kingdom and to prevent peace and reunion with the south. By envy he kept north and south, which both professed the same religion, at each other’s throat.

The orientation towards life or death is not “out there” but inside ourselves, in how we react to God and to share with others as God has shared, indifferent to personal ambition. It is amazing how quickly and simply today’s gospel text ends. After the magnificent miracle of feeding “about four thousand” from seven loaves of bread and a few small fishes, the story ends abruptly. He dismissed them and got into the boat with his disciples to go to the neighbourhood of Dalmanutha. Acting out of compassion, not ambition, Jesus did not make a living from miracles. The happiness of seeing others restored to life and strength was his driving force: promoting life was nourishment to him.

Saint Scholastica, virgin

Scholastica (c. 480-542), w hose feast is on 10th February, was the twin sister of St. Benedict of Nursia. She founded a religious community for women at Plombariola, near Benedict’s Monte Cassino abbey, which began the women’s branch of Benedictinism. According to St. Gregory, Benedict saw his sister’s soul leaving the earth and ascending to heaven in the form of a shining dove. Scholastica is the patron saint of nuns, and her intercession is invoked against storms and rain.