4th Sunday of Lent 19 March 2023 Food for the soul
At times certain foods are offered to us with the
encouragement that it will be ‘good for you’!
The food will go to work inside the body and enable various
good effects. We certainly notice when there is a lack of food and how
debilitating that can be.
After food we feel refreshed and strengthened.
A parallel can be made with the mysterious spiritual food we
know as the Eucharist, or Body of Christ.
This is food of a different order operating on its own
principles in the soul rather than the body.
In the soul is where we are really defined as people. If we
say someone is good or evil it is the soul where this is found.
We do not place any spiritual significance on the health of
the body. One can have a sick body but still be a good person; or a healthy
body and be an evil person.
Goodness is what happens when a person is in good
relationship with God, drawing from His goodness and at least some of that
goodness will take hold in our intellect and will, in what we think, what we
want, the sort of objects we pursue.
The most potent way we can draw goodness from God is through
receiving His Body in the Eucharist.
When we receive Holy Communion we are receiving God's
holiness entering our souls and taking effect.
Provided we are in a state of grace and have at least a
partial faith this holiness will make some difference for good in the one
receiving.
Because it is a different kind of food from ordinary food it
depends on these invisible qualities like faith, hope, charity as to how much
difference it will make.
If I am really desiring to share in the goodness of God that
will enable the Eucharist to have more effect.
If I am indifferent to the process or not really believing
it to be anything special then the Eucharist will have little effect, and may
even be a sin of sacrilege.
In the miracle of the loaves there was an abundance of food
left over; a reminder of God's abundant nature. He can give enough and more.
We can be inspired by this and approach Him confidently in
prayer.
There is no limit then to how ‘good’ we can be, because we
are drawing on an infinite source.
It really depends on us to seek more, and then more again.
This is not being greedy as we might think. God wants us to
be ‘greedy’ in this case because it will cure us of the other sort of greed,
for the things of the world, and any other disordered passion.
The miracle of the loaves is a clear foreshadowing of the Eucharist.
God satisfied a lesser hunger to prepare for a greater.
People say they can do all that without the eucharist, but
the same people would not say they can live without food.
They will say that they have received Communion but it has
not made any difference. That would be because they did not receive it with
sufficient expectation, or some other blockage. It would make a difference if
they persevered in humble expectation.
God will deal with each person according to each one’s need.
They are all receiving the same food, but God may give more or ask more from
one person than another.
If we are ever cut off from receiving the Eucharist we can
call upon spiritual capital we have built up. We should always regard the
Eucharist as essential, however, and not something we can take or leave.
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