January 5, 2021

The First Letter of Saint John   4: 7-10

4:7Most beloved, let us love one another. For love is of God. And everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
4:8Whoever does not love, does not know God. For God is love.
4:9The love of God was made apparent to us in this way: that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
4:10In this is love: not as if we had loved God, but that he first loved us, and so he sent his Son as a propitiation for our sins.

The Holy Gospel According to Mark    6: 34-44

6:34And Jesus, going out, saw a great multitude. And he took pity on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things.
6:35And when many hours had now passed, his disciples drew near to him, saying: “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late.
6:36Send them away, so that by going out to nearby villages and towns, they might buy provisions for themselves to eat.”
6:37And responding, he said to them, “Give them something to eat yourselves.” And they said to him, “Let us go out and buy bread for two hundred denarii, and then we will give them something to eat.”
6:38And he said to them: “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.”
6:39And he instructed them to make them all sit down in groups on the green grass.
6:40And they sat down in divisions by hundreds and by fifties.
6:41And having received the five loaves and the two fish, gazing up to heaven, he blessed and broke the bread, and he gave it to his disciples to set before them. And the two fish he divided among them all.
6:42And they all ate and were satisfied.
6:43And they brought together the remainder: twelve baskets full of fragments and of fish.
6:44Now those who ate were five thousand men.