Soul Food

The Catholic Liturgy for the 19^th Sunday of Ordinary Time, August 12, 2018. Gospel – John 6:41-51. Theme: Soul Food.

As I was reflecting on today’s gospel, in which Jesus says he will satisfy our deepest hunger, I thought of what St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta once said when asked to compare her work in the USA to that in India. She said: “Hunger in America is so much deeper and so much worse than in India.  It is the hunger of the soul. The hunger for God and for love. There is so much wealth but also so much spiritual poverty, so much spiritual hunger.”

Was Mother Teresa right in saying that we who are satisfied materially are in reality starving and dying spiritually? I think so and I also think facts bear it out. Well-fed but spiritually-hungry America, with all we have at our disposal to satisfy our physical needs, has among the highest rate of addiction in the world.  Is there a connection?

Bill Wilson, one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935 said that AA had success where other programs failed because AA was the first to see that addiction is a spiritual disease that requires a spiritual remedy. It happens because for some reason, real or perceived, people come to believe they are not loved, not valuable, not worthwhile. They have lost a sense of meaning and of purpose in life. The pain of this spiritual hunger is too great and so they reach out for whatever will promise to satisfy, to fill that space within us that God and love are meant to occupy.

I think that this is very much like when we are really physically hungry and we’ll grab whatever food is at hand. Junk food is so fast and easy and provides instant gratification but not much real nutrition.  It satisfies the hunger for a time, but does nothing to truly nourish us, to promote our growth and health for the long-term.

My experience with 12-Step Recovery, both for myself and with others, shows that this very same principle of the body applies also to our souls, to our spiritual hunger.  When we are starving spiritually we’ll grab for anything that promises to give meaning and love to our lives; we will reach out for anything that might fill the God-shaped hole within us and satisfy the hunger. And in today’s culture we have all kinds of spiritual junk food that can seem appealing by making false promises about filling us up.

·       Alcohol, drugs, sex, pornography, shopping, gambling, food and other forms of addiction.

·       Compulsive work, materialistic greed, excessive fitness and obsession with a perfect body, and whatever else makes the false promise of personal satisfaction.

These all hold out a fake hope of meeting our spiritual needs… when in fact, it’s quite the opposite… they make the hunger worse and lead to spiritual starvation and death, for they come from darkness.

But today’s Gospel is full of hope as it reminds us that God our Father draws us to Jesus, to the Bread of Life come down from Heaven, that truly satisfies our deepest spiritual hunger. He is Bread, spiritual nourishment, in the Word He speaks to us and He is Bread, spiritual nourishment, in the Eucharistic Food He gives to us.  It is by encountering the Risen Lord Jesus in the Mass that we can truly satisfy our deepest spiritual hunger. That is, if we come to Mass with the same kind of mindfulness and awareness that we give to our physical hunger.

When it comes to feeding our bodies, we take great care to learn what is good for us, as well we should: we shop for it mindful of proper nutrition, prepare it thoughtfully and eat it gratefully.  And it seems to me that the same should be true about our approach to spiritual nourishment.

We need to be mindful and realize that the Mass is so much more than just Bible readings and prayers that we can find in other places or say on our own. For 2,000 years it has been the sacred gathering of God’s holy people and He has promised to be personally present among us when we gather for it. Catholics in various nations over the centuries, and even today, have literally risked their lives to attend Mass.

We need to prepare for Mass carefully, perhaps by taking a missalette home or going online to take a look at the Sunday readings. In this way, we have a better chance of hearing the message that God wants us to receive through the Scriptures. He wishes to feed our minds with His Word and satisfy our spiritual hunger for meaning and truth.

And lastly, we need to partake of the Living Heavenly Bread gratefully, receiving the very Body and Blood of Christ with trust in God’s love. Through the celebration of the Eucharist we are somehow brought into the supernatural spiritual realm, coming face-to-face with the mysterious reality of Jesus’ death and resurrection.  And by receiving the Eucharist we are somehow made part of that mystery and are promised eternal life.

As we now move on to the Liturgy of the Eucharist, let’s ask God for the grace to identify and properly feed the particular spiritual hunger deep inside each one of us. And as we approach Holy Communion, let’s take this hunger to Jesus with joyful trust in His words that closed today’s Gospel: I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.