Link to audio of the Gospel is here.
Link to audio of the homily is here.
Have you ever had to go through something, and you just didn’t know how you were going to get through to the other side? All of us have; when we’re young, it might be something as simple as moving to another part of town and changing schools. Later in life, maybe it’s an important assignment that we just can’t figure out. As we grow toward adulthood, perhaps we lose a close relative or friend to death. All of these things can be hard, depending on our age.
Or maybe we end up in a bad work situation, or worse, we end up unemployed, and we have no prospects of getting another job. Or we end up suffering from a grave illness, or we lose a parent, or a child, or a spouse to death. These things can all make us cry to heaven, asking God to just “take me now, Lord!” Or they can even make us reject God altogether, and make us think we don’t need a God who can’t do any better by us than that.
If we were left on our own to get through all of these situations, if it was on us to figure out how to get through, alone, we’d never make it through. But we aren’t alone. And we have something to sustain us, someone to give us strength, even in the worst of times.
Why was Elijah running through the desert to Horeb? Why did he leave everything he knew? Elijah was running for his life. His work situation, as prophet of God, had gone really badly; after he killed the prophets of the false god Baal, the wife of the king decided Elijah had to die, too. So Elijah was running to save his life. And you know Elijah got tired. Not just physically tired; Elijah was spiritually tired. And he just wanted to give up, lie down and die, because he couldn’t understand how things had gone so wrong. Ever felt that way?
But God didn’t let Elijah just starve, or die of thirst, did he? Instead, God sent Elijah heavenly food and drink to sustain him for his journey, not once, but twice! God had things that He still wanted Elijah to do, so God fed him for the journey!
In the Gospel, Jesus connects Himself to that same food in the desert. He hears the Jews murmuring as He explains who, and what, He is. The Jews cannot understand Jesus’ reference to Himself as “bread”; after all, they know his parents. And Jesus explains further to tell them that His flesh is the bread he’s giving! Jesus claims that those who eat his flesh won’t just make it through their journey: Jesus tells them that those who eat His flesh will live forever!
The Jews, of course, were scandalized. No one ate people. So what Jesus was saying was nonsense, at least at first hearing.
But God fed the Israelites in the desert. And God fed Elijah on his way to Mount Horeb. God had already performed fantastic miracles for His people. And Jesus is the ultimate miracle! Jesus gives us his flesh to eat, in the Most Blessed Sacrament, from this altar. And the food is for the same purpose. God fed the Israelites so that they could continue their journey to the Promised Land. God fed Elijah under the broom tree so that he could continue his journey to his next mission. And Jesus feeds us with His Body and Blood so that we can do what He has ordained us to do!
And what is it that Jesus calls us to do? What is it that He calls us to be? Paul gives us insight in the second reading. Christ calls us to “…be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us”! Jesus feeds us, in order to strengthen us to live in the Holy Spirit! And He feeds us to give us eternal life!
But …how are we supposed to believe that God actually feeds us through Christ’s body when we line up and stick out our hands? After all…that’s just a little round wafer. That’s supposed to be God? Jesus? And how does that help us with all this…junk in our lives? Is the Eucharist going to get me a job? Or bring my wife, my brother, or my child back?
Brothers and sisters, the answer to those questions…is yes. Yes, Jesus will help us! Is He going to make things just like we want them to be? No! But what Christ will do is this: He will give us the strength to make it through! Out of work? Come to Jesus! He’ll sustain you and guide you as you search! Someone died? Come to Jesus! Jesus has the words of everlasting life! Our relatives and friends who die in Christ will rise with Him! Spouse cheating on you? Come to Jesus! He will strengthen you against the pain, and He will work on the heart of your spouse to bring them back to Him!
Whatever the hurt, if we can bring it to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, we will receive strength to live through it! We are all drawn to Christ through the Father, just as Jesus said: we’re here this morning! And now that we’re here, we can receive the Bread of Life, and live forever! All we have to do…is believe!
Life is a journey. And during that journey, we all go through things that seem too hard to survive: death, disappointment, and despair, are all part of our human experience. They can sometimes pull us into a hole we can’t see a way to climb out of.
God, however, has a different way planned for all of us. We have all been drawn to Christ, by God, through our baptism. We have all received the gift of faith from God; it’s why we came in here this morning. And God does not leave us to figure all this out on our own!
Jesus said: “I am the living bread that came down from Heaven”. When we receive that Living Bread from the hands of our priest, we are given the strength to live as “imitators of God”, His beloved children. And nothing can really hold us down.
Feeling down? Feeling like you just can’t go on? Let Christ refresh you in this meal we’re about to receive! Christ is the Bread of Life. Christ is our food for the journey.
Take, and eat…and believe!
The Family Man
August 22, 2009
Deacon Chip Commentary Leave a comment
I just watched the movie The Family Man with my wife a little bit ago. In this film, Jack (Nicholas Cage), an obscenely successful Wall Street arbitrage trader, Meets Cash (Don Cheadle), a thug who threatens to rob a store in which Jack is shopping on Christmas Eve late. Turns out old Cash is not what he appears, and in response to a comment Jack makes about “having all he needs”, cash zaps Jack into a “glimpse” of the life he could have had if he’d made different decisions early on. If you’ve never seen it, I highly recommend the movie, especially if you are a family man yourself. Ladies, you have permission to not watch it, and to not force your husbands to watch it againt their will
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What I found intriguing, and even touching, about this movie is the subject of this post. The point of the movie, without spoiling the plot for those who will rush out to Blockbuster to rent it, or onto Netflix to have it sent to you, is that fulfillment in life comes in many forms, and it may not be in the form you think. Typical motivational movie stock, right?
This is what struck me.
I am a 1982 graduate of the United States Military Academy; I count that time as among the most formative of my life. I have classmates who are general officers; I have classmates who are presidents of companies (all you cellphone users, my classmate Brett Commoli runs your insurance company!). I have former roomates who are senior State Department employees. One of my classmates is a senior vice-president for the Brazilian operation of a large US firm.
Many of my classmates would qualify as rich; many others are influential, and will be rich later in their lives. I graduated with men and women who are doctors, lawyers, captains of finance and industry; in short, the folks I went to school with are some outstanding people!
Others of us, though, have not aspired to such lofty positions. Some of my classmates are stay-at-home moms; some are schoolteachers. a few are pastors. Like me, they have chosen, or had choices placed on them by their circumstances, to be people of simpler means and simpler aspirations. They will never own apartments in New York; they will never jet off to tahiti for a vacation. Some won’t even be able to pay their kids’ way through college without financial aid. They will remain solidly middle-class all their lives.
But in the final analysis, just as the characters in “The Family Man” found out, their bank balances are not the pint of this thing we expperience as life. Those who have achieved much are to be applauded; I am proud of every one of my sister and brother classmates who has reached to heights that we could only imagine as twenty-somethings leaving the Academy. But there are more ways to achieve success than to earn a large salary, or to command the respect of large numbers of subordinates.
My classmates who are staying at home to raise children are raising the next generation of leaders in our nation. Those who are ministers are nurturing the souls of those placed in their care. The corporate drones are providing the living that keeps their families going. And they are all, hopefully, happy in their states in life. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his soul, the Bible asks (Mark 8:36)? In the end, it profits one nothing. So, while I might dream of what might have been, I have to be mighty thankful for what is: a wife who loves me, four daughters who think I am the smartest man in the world (OK, three, but the seventeen-year-old will come around in a coule of years!), a home that’s warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and a job that allows me to return home each day knowing that my efforts have actually improved someone’s life. I could be richer; I could be prettier (OK, well, maybe that’s a stretch…I look pretty good!); I could have more education or a position of more authority. But all of those things, in my life, require some trade-offs that I am not willing to make. I am working to be as happy in the here-and-now as our situation warrants.
God places each of us where He wants us to prosper. While we can force our way into other places, ultimatelym, we will only really be happy in the place God has called us to. My place is here in Bartlett, TN, with my wife and family, working both for my company and for the Kingdom of God. Everything that isn’t consistent with that place, with those missions, is ultimately going to make me unhappy.
Thinking about what your life could have been like “if only…”? Take a peek at the movie. And consider what your life is like now. How has god gifted you? How are you making the best of what your life is like right now?
Some of us, most maybe, are blessed beyond our wildest dreams…
If we can just see it.