6th Sunday after Pentecost 24.7.11 Spiritual hunger
One of God’s many blessings to the human race is that He provides us with food – so important to us for enjoyment, and relieving of hunger.
Today’s Gospel (the feeding of the multitude) describes one such occasion when God intervenes miraculously to provide food for thousands of people.
The miraculous nature of the event invites us to look beyond just the physical dimension and see what else God might be saying to us here.
Our Lord explained that the Israelites in the desert had received bread, but that was food only for the body. Now He, Jesus, would provide bread which would satisfy the soul, and would be lasting in its effects. He who eats this bread will never die.
He was talking spiritually. He was talking about the Eucharist, where His own Body would be food for us.
Just like physical food, the bread of life, the bread from heaven would provide energy - for the soul. Eating this bread will enable us to live rightly, to meet all our obligations, to live in joyful hope of better things to come, and all other related spiritual good effects.
When it comes to this particular food from heaven, its value is often missed because it is perceived as too abstract, too far above everyday needs.
Thus it happens that many people are apathetic or indifferent to receiving Holy Communion.
Most Catholics do not receive it even weekly (because they do not come to Mass weekly).
Most non-Catholics would not acknowledge that it is really the Body of Christ.
But of these people there are few who would turn down a good meal. Spiritual hunger is very real but it does not hurt as obviously as physical hunger. So it is easier to put it off to another day.
Are we hungry for the bread of life? Or do we receive it simply because it is part of the ritual?
The attitude of the one receiving this food has a lot to do with the results that will follow.
Two people receiving side-by-side could be receiving something very different. It is the same consecrated Host, the full body, blood, soul and divinity of Our Lord that is being received.
But if one person is fully believing, desiring to be filled with heavenly grace - while the other is merely going through the motions – there will be different outcomes.
We could say we receive what we want to receive. If we really hunger for the goodness of God we will receive it. If we are indifferent, though Christ be present, we will not benefit from His presence.
(A person in mortal sin will actually be worse off for receiving the sacrament because of the sin of disrespect involved.)
One reason for the indifference of many Catholics to this sacrament is that they think they can be ‘good’ by their own strength. Why bother to go to church and receive a sacrament when I could achieve the same effect by staying home and just making good resolutions?
This is to overrate one’s own strength. Many a good resolution does not see the light of day.
Also it is to reduce our religion to a merely ethical matter, whereas we are called to a life-giving relationship with God, like branches to a tree. Our Lord was not just an ethical teacher, setting out rights and wrongs. He calls us to direct and intimate union with Him. Unless you eat this bread you cannot have eternal life. (John 6,53)
A certain amount of childlike wonder will help here. We must not argue the point: just come, open our hearts and receive whatever it is that God wants to give. Take as much as you can, ‘all you can eat’. And each time we grow in desire and will be able to receive even more the next.
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