Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B
Few Malaysians truly understand
the meaning of hunger. In fact, our main dilemma is often the difficulty of
choosing between endless options: What shall we eat? What shall we drink? So
much of our time and attention is wrapped up in answering those questions.
Hunger pangs often do not last for too long as they are soon sated by a kind of
binging that would make the Romans, infamous for their orgiastic banquets,
blush with shame. But there is more than just a physical hunger. A type of
hunger that is often masked by our need to binge. Hunger in itself is a sign –
it points to the incompleteness, the neediness of man. To be human is to be
hungry, to be needy, to be caught up in a constant search for something more.
In fact, the more we realise just how limited we are, the more we see how our
whole existence points to something beyond ourselves.
God knows both the physical
hunger of the body and the spiritual hunger of the soul. In the story of
creation, God created man with this constant need for sustenance. He created
man hungry, but he also created the world of which man can partake in order to
live. But man’s sustenance is not limited merely to the material or physical.
It must ultimately find its deepest and most profound satisfaction in the
spiritual – communion with God. Yes, man is a hungry being. But there is a
greater hunger that needs to be satisfied than the physical hunger of man. It
is the hunger for God. Behind all the hunger of our life is God. All desire is
finally a desire for Him. In the Eucharist, in the gift of Jesus Christ
Himself, the Bread of life, we see both material and the spiritual hunger
finding the satisfaction. As God provided manna to the Israelites crossing the
wilderness, so God, provides Jesus, the Bread of Life, to sustain us.
Today’s gospel is part of the
lengthy Bread of Life Discourse that we will get to hear every Sunday for the
next few weeks. Last week, we witness the miraculous feeding of the multitudes
through the multiplication of the five barley loaves and two fish. Today’s
discourse seeks to explain both the messianic and Eucharistic significance of
that miracle. The crowds who pursued Jesus around the length of the lake had
followed after him, not because they were disciples who believed, that is they
possessed the perception of faith, but because they had been taken with the
material and sensational nature of the sign. With an insatiable hunger, they
pursued him – eager to see power and majesty made manifest. Perhaps, another
“free meal.” In answer to their ambitious desires and hunger, he offered only
the gift of himself: his teaching and his life.
To those who hoped for a
repeat performance of the manna, Jesus spoke of non-perishable food that
“endures to eternal life.” The manna in the desert melted in the heat of the
day but the food of the Son of Man, the bread the Father gives would never
cease to fill them with blessings. Having fed them with the multiplication of
the loaves, Jesus now turns to challenging them to raise their attention from
their stomachs to their hearts. He would have them spiritually hungry, thereby
open to the truth of his teaching. This is the hunger that moves men toward God.
This is the hunger that only God through Christ can fill.
Do we come with such a hunger
for the Word of God and the Bread of Life at every mass? Do we hunger for life,
real life, abundant life, eternal life? Do we have a hunger so weakening that
it drives us to our knees in prayer and submission? Or have we already feasted
on other things to the extent that we have lost our appetite? Perhaps it has
been a while since you knew this kind of hunger. Few seem to suffer
from intensity of hunger and thirst for God and that is a great tragedy. They
have forgotten that hunger is part of God's merciful provision, a divinely sent
stimulus to propel us in the direction of food and sustenance. It is nature's
last drastic effort to rouse the imperiled life to seek to nourishment. A dead
body feels no hunger. The dead heart cannot aspire nor desire.
We
can lose our taste for the eternal when we develop a taste for the things of
this world. One of the clear indicators that something is wrong physically is
when we lose our appetite. Hunger is both a sign of health as well as a sign of
vitality. It is the same spiritually. To hunger and thirst for God is at the
very root of our being. When there is no hunger for the presence of God, it is
an indicator that something is wrong spiritually. Because that hunger is so
basic to human nature, it often finds fulfillment in other areas rather than in
seeking God. Many attempt to fill the gnawing emptiness of their hearts and
mask the pangs of hunger through all sorts of false substitutes. Much as eating
unhealthy junk food can dull physical appetite, so that which is not of God can
dull our spiritual appetite. So many today snack their way through the day on “junk-food”,
material things, busy-ness, alcohol, pornography, sexual immorality, and then
find they have no time to “feast” with God. As much as we consume all these
“junk food,” we continue to end up hungry, hungering for more.
The
Eucharist is the food which satisfies man's deepest hunger and profoundest
longings. God feeds us with Himself. Created in the image and likeness of God
himself, man can find the final appeasement of his hunger and fulfilment of his
desires in God alone. We have the testimony of St Augustine who hungered for
knowledge and love in all the wrong places and finally found the answer in God,
“Our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee.” The Eucharist, the Bread of
Life, the true Manna from Heaven, the Bread of Angels, the Elixir of
Immortality, is that most nourishing food that promises not just a healthy
spiritual life but eternal life, the antidote to death.
How
then can we nurture this holy hunger for God, for His Christ, for the Bread of
Life? It is no accident that one of the great spiritual disciplines of the
Church is to fast. The Church requires us to observe the Eucharistic fast one
hour before communion. When we fast, we become acutely aware of our physical
hunger. That physical hunger can lead to a spiritual hunger as well and this
awakens us to a greater need for God. It may be that we will need to fast from
other things than food in order to restore our spiritual hunger. There may need
to be a slowing of our hectic lifestyles that are crowding out our time with God.
We may need to fast from some forms of entertainment to devote time to seeking
the Lord. Those heavily involved in ministry may need to say “no” to that which
is good, in order to seek that which is best. Let us not wait till Lent or Good
Friday, before we even begin our fasting.
Let
us never ignore or cease to be driven for this hunger for God. The more we give
ourselves to God in our human hunger, the more he gives us the Food that makes
us divine. We must allow this divine
food to define and renew us, be the measure of our very being, the source and
purpose of our lives. I recall the story of a Catholic Chinese bishop who was
21 years in prison—fifteen of them in solitary confinement. .One day, five
years into solitary, the officials came and said, “Hey, we’re going to give you
a break today. For two hours you can do anything you want. Do you want some
nice food? Do you want to go for a walk in the prison yard?” The bishop said, “Give
me some bread and wine.” He celebrated the Mass. And after it was finished, he
went back into solitary. He had lost his taste for the world and all its false
pleasures. His only hunger was for the Lord. Let that be our hunger too.
