Hi everyone. Welcome back to the podcast where we give you an in-depth analysis of the gospel reading from today's Mass.

Today we have quite a well-known reading. So

today's reading at mass is Luke chapter 9 verse 11b to verse 17. And we're going to start at verse 10 today

to give it a bit of context. So Luke chapter 9 versus verses 10 to 17.

On their return, the apostles told him what they had done.

And he took them and withdrew apart to a city called Bethsaida.

When the crowds learned it, they followed him.

Jesus made the crowds welcome and talked to them about the kingdom of God,

and he cured those who were in need of healing.

It was late afternoon when the 12 came to him and said,

Send the people away, and they can go to the villages and farms roundabout to find lodging and food,

for we are in a lonely place here. He replied, give them something to eat yourselves.

But they said, we have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless we are to go ourselves and buy

food for all these people, for there were about 5,000 men. But he said to his disciples, get them to sit down in

parties of about 50. They did so and made them all sit down. Then he took the five loaves and the two

fish, raised his eyes to heaven, and said the blessing over them, then he broke them and handed them to his

disciples to distribute among the crowd. They all ate as much as they wanted, and when the scraps

remaining were collected, they filled 12 baskets. So that's our reading for today. It's the story of the feeding of the 5,000.

Pretty much everyone knows this story. And this is one of the only events that occurs in all four

gospels, which means it's quite important in the early Christian church's mind. If all four

gospel authors feel the need to repeat this story, it obviously

had a lot of significance to them, probably because of its Eucharistic overtones.

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