August 5, 2012 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time B

Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15; Ephesians 4:17, 20-24; John 6: 24-35

For the next four weeks the Gospel concentrates on Jesus’ ‘Bread of Life Discourse’; Jesus is telling me and everyone about the Gift of Himself that He gives in the Eucharist. What a special topic and I start with some beginning reflections:

• Am I aware of what I am doing when I come and celebrate the Eucharist?
  
• Do I receive the Eucharist as a habit or am I really aware that God is giving me Himself to give me all the nourishment and love that I need?
  
• And maybe even more basic: do I know what I need?
  
• What is the basis of my spiritual life?
  

This brings me to the most basic and direct and most important question that I have to ask myself: How deeply do I believe that I need God? This certainly seems to be an easy question because I know I need God every moment of every day but do I really believe this completely? Do I go to God only when I need Him and the rest of the time I can handle things, because God is busy? I say, of course not, but do I act this way?

Do I really want to believe that every part of me is important to God and therefore every single thing I do God is present helping me, if I ask? And not only that, do I believe and live the fact that God is continually leading me closer to Himself and Heaven? Do I really believe that God has a place for me in heaven and wants me to be with Him forever?

As one spiritual writer who shared this about today’s reading said, “When things are going great it’s easy to start believing that the good things in our life come from us, from our goodness or wisdom, from our efforts or ambition. We begin to see ourselves as the authors of our lives, the masters of our own destinies. That’s when our egos can begin to take over, inflating our own sense of self-importance. And spiritually, that’s a pretty dangerous place to be. Who needs God? I have me.”

That’s true and when things are going badly that’s when it’s natural for me to turn to God much more. That’s what Moses shares in the first reading; here the people had been liberated after so many years of forced slavery and were now free and their gratitude lasted until the food ran out and they were hungry: their gratitude ended and complaining began. Is there a pattern in this in the way I act at times?

It takes faith for me to realize completely that I need God every moment. It takes real faith for me to realize that God is with me in the good times of my life and the difficult times. It takes real faith for me to realize that God is with me at every moment because that’s the way that God is: He loves me each moment and every moment of every hour and every day and month and year, because that’s what Jesus told us that God does. Now why do I have problems with this? I really don’t but the better question is what prevents me from seeing this love and care of God at every moment because I and each person are that important to Him? And Jesus knew what I need and what everyone needs and that’s Himself.

The people in the Gospel saw the miracle of the loaves and fishes and figured that this was something and they could have an instant God experience anytime so why not make Jesus king. Jesus told them they were searching for the wrong kind of God. He gives each of us food for our journey to Himself.

Msgr. Gene Lauer, a writer, puts it this way, “The ‘food that remains unto eternal life’ the very presence of Jesus himself, does not suddenly turn us into perfect saints, into deliriously joyful religionists who are never depressed. Rather, Jesus comes to us constantly to invite us to partake of the experience of true religion: effort-filled prayer, the tedious struggle to serve humanity, the disciplined commitment to gospel values.

I hope that my Christian brothers and sisters in the ‘born-again’ movement are not offended by this suggestion, but I do hope that they are challenged by it. A clearly-defined singular and instant experience of God is not what Jesus proclaims in this gospel. A life-long pursuit of God and a life-long pursuit of us by God, with occasional high points of spiritual intercourse, is the diet that takes us to eternal life.”

Alice Camille asks that reflective question: “How much do you sustain yourself on holy ways, holy books, holy examples and holy food?”