A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark 8:14-21
The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat.
The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat.
The Pharisees came forward and began to argue with Jesus, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him.
Jesus came down with the Twelve and stood on a stretch of level ground with a great crowd of his disciples and a large number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon.
In those days when there again was a great crowd without anything to eat, Jesus summoned the disciples and said, “My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat.
Jesus left the district of Tyre and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, into the district of the Decapolis. And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, “Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”) And immediately the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly.
Jesus went to the district of Tyre.
Jesus summoned the crowd again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand.
This people honors me with their lips,/ but their hearts are far from me;/ in vain do they worship me,/ teaching as doctrines human precepts.
After making the crossing to the other side of the sea, Jesus and his disciples came to land at Gennesaret and tied up there.
While the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God, he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret.