Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Alleluia. Alleluia.
The Lord be with you.
A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Mark.
A large crowd assembled, and they were without anything to eat.
Jesus called the disciples over to him and said,
My heart is moved with pity for the crowd.
By now they have been with me three days and have nothing to eat.
If I send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way.
Some of them have come a great distance.
His disciples replied,
How can anyone give these people sufficient bread in this deserted spot?
Still he asked them,
How many loaves do you have?
Seven, they replied.
Then he directed the crowd to take their place.
They put their places on the ground.
Taking the seven loaves, he gave thanks, broke them, and gave them to his disciples to distribute.
And they handed them out to the crowd.
They also had a few small fishes.
Asking a blessing on the fish, he told them to distribute these also.
The people in the crowd ate until they had their fill.
Then they gathered up seven wicker baskets of leftovers.
Those who had eaten numbered about four thousand.
He dismissed them.
And got into the boat with his disciples to go to the neighborhood of Delmanutha.
The gospel of the Lord.
Praised be Jesus and Mary.
Today we celebrate the memorial of St. Scholastica, the sister of St. Benedict.
And in the Butler Lives of the Saints, it relates, unfortunately, there is not much written about St. Scholastica.
We do know that she was the twin sister of St. Benedict.
And after Benedict established his monastery on Monte Cassino,
she moved to a region about five miles from there,
was the abbess of a convent of nuns that St. Benedict directed.
And every year she would visit her brother.
And we have the story related by St. Benedict.
St. Gregory in his writings about the siblings' last visit.
They spent the day talking about God and the joys of heaven.
And Benedict would bring some of his monks with him.
And they were having supper in St. Scholastica.
Because they suspect she foresaw that this would be their last visit.
And she asked her brother if he could stay and talk all night about the wonders of God and the joys of heaven.
And he said he couldn't.
He didn't want to break his rule.
He had to get back to his monastery, which was just a short distance away.
So St. Scholastica, with her hands folded, put her head down on the table on her hands.
And asked God.
And all of a sudden there was a clap of thunder.
And it rained so hard that the monks couldn't budge past the door of the cottage.
So, against his will, he stayed and spoke.
He spent the night speaking with his sister.
So just three days after that, Benedict was in his cell.
And he said to his sister,
So just three days after that, Benedict was in his cell.
So just three days after that, Benedict was in his cell.
And he looked out the window and saw his sister's soul ascend to heaven in the form of a dove.
So he called a couple of his monks and told them to go fetch the body of his sister that she had passed away.
And he buried her in the tomb that he had prepared for himself.
And Gregory relates that those who were so closely united in soul,
during life, would be that their bodies would rest together.
And actually, Benedict didn't live too much longer.
He joined his sister in eternity.
So today we pray to St. Scholastica that she intercede for many of the communities of nuns today
that they seek an authentic religious life.
And grow.
And grow in a deeper union with their beloved spouses, our Lord Jesus Christ.