6th Sunday after Pentecost 26.6.16 False gods
God can hide a great deal of reality behind a humble exterior. To look at a consecrated host, just to go by appearance alone, we may not see anything so remarkable.
Behind that appearance is no less than the presence of God Himself, who made the whole universe; God in all His infinite power and goodness.
So also God can hide Himself in His actions. As Our Lord works His miracles, there is a much deeper meaning behind each of them.
In the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, we see the mystery of the Eucharist foreshadowed.
He feeds a crowd of people. So far so good. The sheer abundance of the miracle indicates He has the power to feed, without limit of number or time. He can feed all people for all time.
And not just with ordinary bread but Heavenly bread, which does far more.
God can do more than we generally realize. His goodness is not fully evident to us (our earthly eyes could not cope with the sight of His full glory). His ways are mysterious; we do not always understand His reasons, though we do understand His general intent.
We have to make a decision. Are we to pursue the knowledge of God, and seek to draw closer to Him? Even though it will mean travelling along dark pathways, and facing all sorts of difficulties?
Or shall we simply take from this life whatever we can get our hands on? In other words, pursue false gods?
False gods are many. They come under general headings: like power, pleasure, wealth.
The false gods have a certain advantage, insofar as they appeal to the here and now. One does not have to be very deep to want pleasure, status etc. These are things everyone wants, at least to start with.
But we come in, with the Gospel, and say: No, folks, you should not want those things (instant delights), but instead be worshipping this mysterious one true God, who will lead you into deeper and deeper truths.
Many bail out, and take their chances with this world.
We are tempted one way, and challenged the other.
If we accept the challenge, we will save ourselves a lot of the damage that the false gods can do to us. And we will have clearer consciences, with a greater sense of self-worth.
For which purpose we take the heavenly food along the way, to keep close enough to God, so we can navigate our way, making progress in insight, and understanding.
We have the miracles to remind us of His power to provide for us what we need.
We have the very poor track record of false gods, on the other side, to remind us not to follow them.
They bring, after an initial fleeting happiness, only emptiness.
Supposing I love money. If I have all the money in the world, with cars, houses, everything money can buy. So what then? There is a hunger within us that only the true God can satisfy.
We can still enjoy the things of this life, but in a way that is balanced and moderated. Our desires will not control us; we will control them.
We have hardly started to realize how desirable God is; how much we hunger for Him. So we have to cultivate that understanding; feel the hunger, and take the heavenly food, with all that follows for our daily lives.
His commands will become light, a joy to keep, once we understand them.
We will not begrudge Him our obedience and attention, but will take every chance we get to draw closer to Him, and to our final destination, Heaven itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment