Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Ex 16: 2-4.12-15, Eph 4: 20-24, Jn 6: 24-35
Dear sisters and brothers,
In 1885 Vincent Van Gogh visited a museum in Amsterdam in order to see Rembrandt’s famous painting. ‘The Jewish Bride’. Having seen it he said, ‘I would give ten years of my life if I could sit before this picture for a fortnight, with nothing but a crust of dry bread for food. My first hunger is not for food, though I have fasted ever so long. The desire for painting is so much stronger, that when I receive some money, I start at once hunting for models until all the money is gone.
It’s not only the body that gets hungry; the heart and the spirit get hungry too. The bread of material things can never satisfy the heart of a human being. To nourish a human being is not the same as to fatten cattle. We are creatures not with one hunger but with a hundred hungers. We hunger for lots of things besides bread.
Not all of our hungers should be satisfied. Some of them are appetites which could destroy us if we feed them. The more they are fed, the hungrier and more demanding they become. We should be aware that such appetites exist within us. But let us stay with the hungers that should be satisfied if we are to be properly nourished as human beings and children of God.
We hunger for a feeling of importance. Nobody wants to be a nobody. We all want to matter, if only to one person.
We hunger for acceptance. If we are not accepted it becomes almost impossible for us to realize ourselves.
We hunger for relationship. Without them we are at the mercy of cold winds of anguish and loneliness. We are like a lone tree on a hilltop.
We hunger for motivation. Without it, we, like a sail boat without the wind.
We hunger for faith-for a set of positive beliefs to guide us. Otherwise, we are like a ship without chart or compass or port of destination.
We hunger for hope. To give up hope is akin to going on a spiritual hunger strike.
We hunger for love. If this was fully satisfied then most of our other hungers would disappear.
However, there is one further hunger, a deeper one, and one that underlines all our other hungers, including that of love. It is the hunger for eternal life. In other words, the hunger for God. To experience this hunger is not a misfortune but a blessing. It saves us from stagnation and keeps the stream of our lives moving towards the sea.
Every day we see people emerging from supermarkets with trolleys loaded down with food and drink. But we won’t find this other bread in supermarkets. If we could, we would be well nourished. Only God can give us this food. Only God can satisfy our deepest hungers.
The manna sustained life temporarily. The food Jesus gives sustains life permanently. To us, pilgrims on the streets of time but driven by an irrepressible desire for immortality, Jesus comes with the promise: ‘He who eats the bread that I give will live forever.’ Who would not want to eat of this bread?
Peace and all good!
Fr. Valery Burusu
Parochial Administrator