The garden of Eden was perfect—a place without sin, death, or suffering—

                      and Adam and Eve were innocent, not knowing evil until they disobeyed God’s command .

 

 ＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊     

Genesis 3:9-24*

The Lord God called the man

Saying to him, "Where are you?" He said, "I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked,

so I hid." God said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree I ordered you not to eat?"

 

The man answered, "The woman you put with me gave me fruit from the tree and I ate it." God said to the woman,

"What have you done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me and I ate." The Lord God said to the serpent, "

Since you have done that, be cursed (...) I will make you enemies, you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring.

He will crush your head and you will strike his heel."

 

 To the woman, God said, "I will increase your suffering in childbearing, and you will give birth to your children in pain. (...)

To the man, He said, "Because you have listened to your wife, (...) cursed be the soil because of you!

In suffering you will provide food for yourself from it, all the days of your life. (...)

 

With sweat on your face you will eat your bread, until you return to clay, since it was from clay that you were taken,

for you are dust and to dust you shall return."  (...) Then the Lord God said, "Man has now become like one of us,

making himself judge of good and evil. Let him not stretch out his hand to take and eat from the tree of Life as well,

and live forever." So God cast him from the garden of Eden to till the soil from which he had been made. (...)

 

Ps 90:2, 3-4abc, 5-6, 12-13 In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge.

 

＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊      

Mark 8:1-10

Soon afterward, Jesus was in the midst of another large crowd that obviously had nothing to eat.

So he called his disciples and said to them, "I feel sorry for these people,

because they have been with me for three days and now have nothing to eat.

If I send them to their homes hungry, they will faint on the way; some of them have come a long way."

 

His disciples replied, "Where, in a deserted place like this, could we get enough bread to feed these people?"

He asked them, "How many loaves have you?" And they answered, "Seven."Then he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground.

Taking the seven loaves and giving thanks, he broke them, and handed them to his disciples to distribute.

And they distributed them among the people. They also had some small fish.

So Jesus said a blessing, and asked that these be shared as well.

 

The people ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the broken pieces left over,

seven baskets full. Now those who had eaten were about four thousand in number.

Jesus sent them away, and immediately got into the boat with his disciples, and went to the region of Dalmanutha.

 

Gospel Reflection ：

 Adam and Eve are cast out of Eden to prevent them eating from the Tree of Life

so that they would not be able to add immortality to their capabilities. And yet, every Christian seeks a knowledge

of goodness and to reach eternal life. So, why did God prevent Adam and Eve from obtaining both?

 

It is because we depend on God for our life and our knowledge of goodness,

and so to try to possess these on our own would be to deny our fundamental need for God.

In our own day, secular culture tries to define its own truth and morals, and biotechnology tries to defy ageing and death,

but they don't achieve what they promise. However, God does not leave us in our sin and pride.

 

We may have left the garden of divine union, but God unites himself to us in our poverty through becoming one of us,

so that he might give us eternal life. And so, Jesus, the Son of God, turns the cross, a tree of death, into the new Tree of Life.

It is by his cross and resurrection that we are set free and given the hope of eternal life.