First Reading

Reading from the first letter of the apostle Saint John

1 John 4:7-10

Dear children: Let us love one another, because love comes from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. The love that God has for us has been manifested in that he sent his only begotten Son into the world, so that we might live through him. Love consists in this: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us first and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Gospel

Reading from the holy Gospel according to Saint Mark

Mark 6:34-44

At that time, when Jesus disembarked, he saw a large crowd waiting for him, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things. When it was already late, his disciples approached him and said: “We are in a deserted place and it is already very late. Dismiss the crowd so that they may go to the villages and surrounding towns and buy themselves something to eat.” He replied to them: “You give them something to eat.” They said to him: “Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?” He asked them: “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” When they had found out, they said: “Five loaves and two fish.” Then Jesus ordered the crowd to sit down in groups on the green grass, and they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, Jesus looked up to heaven, blessed God, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples to distribute; he did the same with the two fish. They all ate and were satisfied, and the fragments of bread and fish that they collected filled twelve baskets. Those who ate were five thousand men.